Blood & Water
by ylib
Summary: There's a new girl at Mitarai's school whose soul purpose is to annoy everyone. At the same time, an evil black mist invades and starts to eat people's minds.
1. Graffiti

Sorry about the spelling the first time. It always was my worst subject. I'll put up a couple more chapters soon. They're already written. I just have to go back and edit them. Please review.

Disclaimer: I do not own Yu Yu Hakusho or Mitarai. Graffiti is O.C.

Blood and Water

Part one: Graffiti

"Salutations! I come from elsewhere. Let's go with Tokyo. Lots of people are from there. I'd say it's nice to meet you all, but from the way you're staring, I doubt it. Geez, it's bright in here. Mind if I close the blinds? This class is infested with sunlight."The new student abruptly stopped her self-introduction to the class and started closing blinds. A few gossipy girls in the back started snickering and pointing. It quickly spread.

Mitarai apprehensively watched the wave of scorn spread across his class. She probably gave the worst self-introduction ever. She didn't even say her name, and this class was judgmental, to put it nicely. He sighed. It would be another month before his transfer went through. He listened with one ear as words like "freak", "loser" and even "slut" grew louder in the constant whispers. _"Where did_ _"slut" come from?"_ he thought. She just got here, and there was nothing remotely sexual about her. Mitarai only guessed she was female by her uniform.

She had a very small frame with a slight, maybe even a flat, figure. It was hard to tell under the rumpled untucked shirt and baggy black jacket. The pleated skirt that was supposed to be mid-thigh length came to her knees. She wore one green and one orange sock with a pair of sneakers covered in duck tape. Her hair was blue, orange, black, green and white blonde in random patches. Other than her indecisive dye job, she did nothing with hair or makeup. Her possibly straight hair hung to her shoulders in a matted mess. Mitarai wondered if she owned a mirror or a comb. He felt a terrible dread for her as she fiddled meticulously with a jammed blind string.

"You don't want to introduce yourself?" The teacher finally prompted. He leaned up against the wall in a pose that was almost casual with a long haircut that was almost trendy. He smiled smugly at the small living mess. _"For there to be_ _winners, there must also be losers."_ He thought. It was his favorite phase, and he said it at least once a week.

She finished closing every blind to every window along the wall. At this point, Mitarai was the only one who didn't watch her with arrogant and scheming eyes. He kept his eyes on his homework and tried to mind his own business. She liked the feel of that and took the desk behind him.

"Oh!" She suddenly remembered that she was supposed to be introducing herself. "I hear all those nasty names you're calling me, you stupid brats. Let me give you one to start with." She struck a pose like a disco queen. "Call me Graffiti. That's not what it says in the role book, but both Graffiti and the role book are false names. It's all the same. Call me whatever you will."

She collapsed limply into her new chair and smiled apathetically. Intense anger burned deep in her eyes despite her smiling mouth. Mitarai's stomach clenched. He had spent years pressing hate beneath a calm surface just like that.

"Who are you calling brats, little miss freak?" A boy's voice called from the far corner.

"Stupid brats" She corrected and made a sweeping gesture to encompass the whole class. Cold and hateful glares surrounded her, and she smiled deeper and drank it in.

"_Oh, that's bad. This is really bad!"_ Mitarai thought.

"Don't" He whispered back to her. "They'll hurt you."

She glanced in his direction and kept on smiling. "Cool deal"

"Miss Graffiti, is it? Like the profanity punks scribble onto bathroom walls?" The teacher asked in a pleasant tone. The class laughed. He scratched out her name in his role book and wrote "Graffiti". A smirk slid up the left side of her face exposing one pointed eyetooth.

"I guess your name is in every bathroom stall in the country." That same boy smiled at her from the far corner. His uniform was worn and faded, and his short haircut was ragged, as if he'd done it himself. He shared a smile with the heavyset boy in the chair next to him. "I say she goes around writing her name and number in boys' bathrooms. You know, 'for a good time call . . .'"

"Who'd buy it from a runt like that? She could pass for a little boy." said a pretty girl with heavy rouge.

"Some perverts are into little boys." He argued back. "Isn't that right, Mitarai?" The scorn shifted its focus one desk over.

"Alright class, this isn't an appropriate school topic." The teacher playfully wagged a finger at them. "Turn to Chapter 3." The class fell into a temporary cease-fire, and a black mist that smelled like swamp-water oozed under the door.

Mitarai noticed it immediately. It had a strong spiritual pull that made it hard to look away. It roiled along the floor like a mass of snakes. The black fog covered the teacher's feet, and he kept on reading aloud. It only felt like a draft to him. It spread over the floor and started to deepen like a rising flood. Tendrils flipped out, and a couple girls shrieked as it licked their legs. One of the boys got slapped for it.

"What did I do?" he whined.

"Keep your hands to yourself!" she yelled.

"But it wasn't me this time, I swear!"

Even as he spoke, a girl in the front of the class started to panic. "I can't get up! Something's got my legs! HELP ME!"

As if that was the breaking point, the whole class broke into terrified conversation.

"I can't get up either."

"George, tell me that was you!"

"EEEK! STOP IT! STOP IT!"

"But there's nothing there!"

"What's going on here?" A tendril flipped the book from the teacher's hand, and he couldn't walk to retrieve it. His legs were bound by unseen twisting snakes.

"WHAT"S HAPPENING!?"

Mitarai had been quietly staring into the mist and was starting to feel sleepy. A slow, silent darkness pushed into his mind and pulled down his eyelids. The slight blonde had almost passed out onto his desk when a textbook whacked him on the head.

Graffiti stood on her desk with a 400 page history book in her hand. "Don't sleep. It's pulling you under."

He looked down at the black tendrils that bound his waist. The rest of him was covered by a highpoint in the living mist. It felt him start to struggle. It tightened and pulled him downward. Underneath his feet, the floor was gone.

"Aaaah! No! Please help me!" Mitarai grabbed onto the window sill as his desk and chair sank into the black fog. The block snakes only pulled harder and reached higher.

"They like you in particular, don't they?" Graffiti watched the black tendrils reach for her feet. Her desk began to sink. "Is 'unbindable' a word?" She wondered aloud amid her screaming classmates. "Oh well, we'll find out." She pulled a black marker out of her jacket pocket and wrote 'unbindable' on Mitarai's neck. The twisting snakes ripped him off the ledge and swallowed him.

Mitarai was struggling against the unknown black mist that pulled him down past where the classroom floor should have been. As he breathed its tainted air, his mind was plagued with terrible visions. Most were from the chapter black video. The same visions of war, pain and torture convinced him beyond all doubt to help Sensui destroy every human being. At the same time, he was being pulled in a black river current. He looked out across a vast network of red threads, and he sensed distant fingers pulling those strings. Then with the familiar rush of a psychic opening their territory, it was all gone. He stared at the classroom's florescent lights from the linoleum floor.

"I guess 'unbindable' is a word." Graffiti still stood on her desk, and from his angle on the floor he could see her pink cotton panties. He quickly sat up and hoped she didn't notice.

"You could see it right?" She calmly twirled a tangled green lock of hair.

Mitarai just looked at her nervously.

"If you could see the mist. Why didn't you get onto your desk? Or run?" She asked.

Mitarai was glad he held his tongue. "It . . .pulled at my mind." He couldn't think of a good comparison for it. "I couldn't look away, and it didn't even occur to me to move."

"Hmph, Interesting. Think that's what they got?" Graffiti casually pointed at their silent classmates. They were sprawled across the floor with their faces frozen in mid-scream.

"Are they dead?" Mitarai rushed to a boy's side and checked his wrist for a pulse. Relief washed over him as he felt a steady heartbeat. He was only frozen somehow.

"Awful compassionate toward those vultures." Graffiti said coolly as she wrote on her palm.

"Who are you?" Mitarai asked.

"Watch." She showed him her palm with 'unbindable' written across it. An orange glow surrounded her as it sank into her flesh. "Now it is part of me. I am 'unbindable'." She hopped down and thin trickles of the remaining mist dispersed at her feet like frightened worms. "My ki is too small for my ability though. When I use it on myself, it lasts for half an hour. You have twenty minutes."

A loud boom shook the room from the foundations. The lights flickered and went out.

"Coincidence?" She said with sweet sarcasm.

"I need to find water." Mitarai said. There was a home economics class at the end of the hall. It had sinks and knives.

"Water?" Graffiti's dark silhouette titled its head.

"I need it to use my power." Mitarai couldn't make out her Graffiti's face with only the weak light from the closed blinds. This girl psychic appeared exactly when the black mist did. That was a bit much for coincidence, but she had saved him. Why would a villain do that?

"If you need water, we should get moving." Graffiti's voice cut his line of thought. "By the silence, the whole school's out cold. And by that 'boom', the source of the mist is in the basement."

Mitarai listened to the silence and knew that she was right. He had never seen or heard of a mist like that. However, he doubted it was intelligent enough to retreat and move to plan 'b' on its own. He remembered the endless red lines pulled tight to a single point in the darkness. "A puppetmaster" He murmured to himself. He could just make out the forms of his frozen classmates on the dark floor. Their mouths were open in silent screams, and their teeth reflected brighter than the scattered paper.

"Get out of here." He said to Graffiti.

"Are you coming?" She asked.

"I'll be out soon." He said without looking at her.

"No" She replied. "You have eighteen minutes left. Where will you be when my power stops protecting you? And I like to hit back. I will fight this thing with or without you. So then, lead us to water."


	2. Golems

-This one's pretty short. I'm still just playing around with the characters. Please read & review.

Disclaimer: I do not own Yu Yu Hakusho. (I'm going to get tired of repeating this.)

Part 2: Golems

Mitarai filled the stainless steel sink with cold water and lightly sliced across both wrists. He plunged in both arms and waited. Beneath his faint rippling reflection, his blood fanned out and disappeared.

He remembered when he first discovered his power. He could see his blood rushing out into a full white porcelain sink. There was a comforting stillness in the sweaty heat. The other boys had left the locker room, finally. They left him bruised and beaten on the shower stall floor. It hurt his left leg to stand for so long, maybe that shinbone was fractured. That didn't matter now. He didn't need it anymore. He would never have to see any of them ever again. He could leave everything. He smiled as his vision started to blur, and some unknown switch threw in his subconscious. A strange energy ran through him, and his reflection changed. A new face with red eyes and a sadistic grin smiled at him from the water's surface. It laughed in a high-pitch voice that echoed against the tiled walls. He jumped backwards, but passed out before he ever screamed.

"Hey blondie!" Graffiti's voice snapped him back to the present. "You're not taking the cowards's way out of this, are you?"

"Oh!" Mitarai quickly jerked his hands out of the water and reached for the first aid kit on the counter. The water was a translucent red. He didn't intend to give his monster that much blood. As cold water dripped off his arms, two bloody-water puddles formed on the floor. His head felt too light to stand. Mitarai sank to the floor with his arms pressed across his stomach.

Graffiti lightly took the first aid kit from the counter. "While you're trying not to throw up, I'm going to tape up your wrists."

Mitarai nodded and unwrapped one arm from around his waist. She used both hands to rapidly pass the bandage roll over and under his arm. In a minute, both arms were bond in a tight, white criss-cross pattern. The bleeding was stopped without any numbness in his fingers.

"You're really good at that." Mitarai flexed his hand into a fist, and felt little restraint. "Wow, you might be better than a real nurse."

"Thank you." She snapped the first aid box shut. "How's you're head? Still nauseous?"

"I think I'm alright now." He smiled at her and immediately refocused on his work. "You might need to back up." He walked another ten feet from the sink and opened up his territory. The beast smashed the sink and wall with its mass as it struggled to form itself. A four-foot-high, skull face came within inches of Graffiti to sniff her.

"Down boy. Sit!" She backed up a step in fear.

"Leave her." Mitarai ordered calmly, and the huge golem obediently retracted its snake-like neck.

It's arms, legs and face were a gross, translucent parody of a human, but the body was long and flattened like a centipede. Mitarai walked toward her with two smaller monsters in his arms. One looked like a raindrop with arms, legs and a sadistic grin. The other one could have passed for a crow if she couldn't see straight through it. He happily placed the raindrop monster on her tense shoulder like it was a beanie-baby.

"Gee, my own water monster. I'll be the first kid on my block." She poked at the feather-light monster to see if it bit. The surface rippled and it rotated its smiling face toward her.

"Freaky." She said with a smile and an eye twitch.

"It'll help you." Mitarai assured her. Then he held out the bird golem that was perched on his bandaged forearm. "I want to send a message for help to some other psychics . . ."

"Good idea. Go for it." She said trying to stare down the smiling raindrop.

". . . But I don't know where they are." He continued. "If you write on this golem to deliver a message to someone, it must fly to them, right?"

Graffiti felt the raindrop golem tighten its grip on her shoulder as Mitarai waited for her answer. She smirked. "Theoretically. I've never used my power as a mailman before." The water monster relaxed its grip. She pointed to the unwanted gift perched on her shoulder. "How about we send two in case one doesn't make it?"

"With both of us working together one will be enough. Besides, if I have to make you a replacement, I might pass out from anemia." He smiled sweetly enough, but Graffiti suspected her guardian golem also served as a tracking device.

Graffiti clucked her tongue. "Fine. Give me the bird-thingy, and I'll address it. Who is it going to?" She popped open her marker and poised her hand above its clear back. If this worked, it meant she could graffiti the other golem later.

"To Mitsunari Yanagisawa. He should be the closest. He'll tell Kido-san, Kaito-san and Master Genki what's happening immediately. Kuwabara-san will probably hear it from Master Genki tonight or tomorrow, but Urameshi-san and Hiei-san won't come this time. If I've heard right . . ."Mitarai tried to remember if Kurama was in demon world or if he was still in school.

"How many psychics do you know?" Graffiti asked.

"Oh, a few." He didn't want to explain the whole Sensui ordeal to her.

One pointed eyetooth peered out behind her smirking lip. Graffiti wrote out a full sentence on the crow golem to insure its success. "This airworthy messenger will deliver its letter to Mitsunari Yanagisawa within fifteen minutes." Mitarai finished his note and tied it to the monster's leg. She opened her territory, and released the bird from the window. It dropped like a stone. At the last instant, it flapped furiously above the ground. It wobbled and rolled a couple feet above the grass and slowly gained altitude like a drunken bumblebee. They watched it tumble through a bush and weave out the other side.

"Make many birds?" Graffiti asked.

Mitarai blushed. "It's been a while since I've tried one, and they were always difficult. Don't worry, I'm sure it will make it."

"Who's worried?" She shrugged and leaned onto the window sill. "But it's a good thing I wrote 'airworthy' on it, isn't it." She added smugly. Then she glanced down at the black mist that crept around the school's foundation. "Hey, blondie."

My name is Kiyoshi Mitarai." He corrected her.

"Fine. Mitarai-kun, look down." The writhing pitch-dark mist encircled the building's foot. Another "boom" echoed through the school, and with a grating shudder, the entire school dropped a few inches.

"No! It's going to pull in the whole school!" He and Graffiti could still escape, maybe, but how would they move hundreds of frozen people?

"Well, this school's screwed." Graffiti leaned her cheek on her hand like ravenous evil was becoming tiresome. "I can't 'unbindable' the whole school." She added casually. "It's too big, and my power is split three ways as it is."

She watched Mitarai out of the corner of her eye, and imagined she could see the gears turning in his head. The little monster on her shoulder started laughing softly in a squeaky voice.

"I'm going down to the basement." He said through his teeth.

"Finally, I was getting tired of waiting on you." She narrowed her light brown eyes into a determined glare and smiled to show both long eyeteeth to the gums. Both Graffiti and the monster on her shoulder sported crazy grins and vicious eyes. Mitarai abandoned his second request for her retreat without even voicing it. He walked over the rubble from the smashed wall and Graffiti followed with a skip in her step.


	3. Strings and Bounds

-I have an argument in here with honorifics. I know the basics, but if anyone sees a mistake, please correct me. Going to get serious next chapter, really.

Disclaimer: I do not own Yu Yu Hakusho

Part 3 – Strings and Bounds

"Oh look, I think it's waving." Graffiti pointed at the black tendrils flailing from the basement stairs. She waved at them like she was on a parade float. The black ooze had thickened to the consistency of hot tar, and it flooded the basement at least four feet deep. Assuming, of course, there was still a basement floor. Another grinding tremor shook the walls, and the floor dropped six inches.

"That was a big one wasn't it." Graffiti said happily.

"Yes, it was." Mitari agreed somberly. The thicker tendrils frayed at the ends as they thrashed the wall. They clawed at it and twisted as if trying dig through then sank again into the moving floor. Misshapened bubbles formed and sank without popping. A lumpy bubble surfaced and slowly rotated. Unmistakably, eyes, a nose and a frozen screaming mouth rolled up to the air then turned down into the inky muck.

"Well, Mitari-kun looks like we found those asshole-classmates you were so worried about. Just think, if those tendrils are their arms now, then it really was waving." Her nonchalant humor was too much for him to take.

"What's wrong with you?! Those are people!" He screamed.

"No," She smiled and wagged her index finger. "Those were people. And they were pathetic specimens. They were never up to my standards of real people anyway. Of course, I don't consider myself a real person either. Perhaps my standards are too high."

A chill ran thorough Mitarai's already tense spine. Graffiti could have pleasant conversations with Sensui about fitting ends for worthless humans. _"She can't be all bad though, or she wouldn't be trying to help." _He reminded himself.

Meanwhile, Graffiti was scratching the huge golem under the chin like it was a kitten. "I need to borrow Jumbo-chan." She named it on the spot and popped the cap off her marker.

"There's no way I'm swimming in living goo." She scrawled "unbindable" across the massive forehead and sparks of orange energy leapt out as she pushed the limits of her territory to include the massive golem. She sank to her knees with her teeth clenched and a smiled cemented on her then lips.

"Are you alright?" Mitarai ran to her side, but she shoved him away.

"I'm good. I'm fine. My dad always said I'm tougher than a cockroach, and I can prove it!" Graffiti's temple visibly throbbed.

Mitarai wondered briefly about her dad. "Are you sure you can hold this? We don't know anything about this enemy, or if he's even here. If you pass out while . . ."

"He's here!" Graffiti yelled and jumped to her feet in one motion. "He's here somewhere. Trust me. We'll find him, and I can hold this. I'm still within the space limits of my territory. When the time expires on you, I still have enough power and space to restart your shield. NO more stalling. If you're scared now, that just means you're sane. So yes or no. Are we doing this?" She stared at him with eyes that were clearly in pain from the mental pressure, but her smile was flawless and still.

Mitarai looked across the deformed shifting masses with dozens of drowning arms that blindly pulled everything into the bottomless tar. The tendrils had definitely evolved into elongated, dripping arms, and whether by energy or sounds, they all seemed to reach in Mitarai's direction.

"They know we're here." It was like the ooze arms were reaching out desperately for help, but if those hands seized them, their help was consumed. Mitarai cracked a dark smile. Sensui would laugh at this little irony, and Kuwabara would already be wading through the mental tar. He took a deep breath and cleared his mind completely. "Sorry about that, I'm ready to go now."

"Cool deal." She said through her immobile smile.

She scrambled up onto the golem's back with a speed that really did remind Mitarai of a scrambling cockroach. "Good, horsie." She said patting its back. Sweat was running down her cheek. Mitarai climbed up the golem's snake-like neck and sent his will through the mental link connecting them. It obediently walked toward the basement stairs. The stairs groaned as the golem bent them underfoot. Then it easily slid into the bottomless ooze like a boat on a lake. Another "boom" echoed around them, and the ceiling overhead dropped a few more inches.

Graffiti looked around at the flooded basement and saw nothing of interest. There was a writhing evil sea halfway up the walls, but other than that, the walls needed paint. All the contents of the basement must have already been sucked down because it was empty and vast. She sighed and started to idly watch Mitarai. He kept one eye on the tar hands as their grip slipped on the giant golem's surface. Elsewhere, those same hungry hands were ripping chucks out of the stained walls. She could see a faint smile at the corners of his mouth. His curly blonde hair had fallen into loose disarray, and his blue uniform was splattered with his own watered-down blood.

"It's a real pity." She thought to herself. She pulled a cell phone camera out of her pocket and took aim. "Hey, Mitarai-kun." He looked over his shoulder and the flash blinded him.

"Ack! What are you doing?" He said rubbing his eyes.

"I take pictures of things I've done that people would never believe if I described it. Right now, I'm riding on a monster that is floating on a black sea of liquid minds in my school's basement" She frowned at the digital image. "Hmph, You've got such a cute face, I wonder why this picture looks so awful. Let me take another one."

"Your hands are shaking." Mitarai said in a worried tone of voice.

She observed her own shaking hand and found that her will wasn't enough to stop it. "Yes," she said dryly. "That must be why the picture's so lousy. Therefore, there's no point in taking another one until I'm under less strain." She snapped her cell phone shut and put it away with trembling hands. Mitarai gave her a searching look.

"We've got time." She assured him. "Let's enlarge a few doors and look at the rest of the rooms. There's nothing in this one." A wave of nausea hit her, and Graffiti pushed it back and smiled flawlessly.

Mitarai watched her fight the strain and looked one last time at the stairway out. "Alright." He agreed quietly.

Graffiti continued to smile, but she could only stay conscious for a few more minutes. _"I hate to damage Mitarai-kun's trust in me, but I can't afford to waste any more energy on this surface hunt." _She thought. She released her iron will and the repressed strain hit her mind like a mallet. A welcome nothing filled her. Mitarai's scream echoed down a long tunnel from a far-away place. She continued to smile as distant, sticky hands gripped her legs, and pulled her under. Then she was nowhere, without gravity or ground. A consciousness brushed against her in the stillness, and searching fingers clawed into her mind. A foreign will pried her open like a shellfish and began to rip apart her memories. The word "unbindable" was forgotten and drifted away into the blackness. Her habit of biting her nails, the taste of watermelon, math equations, criminal files and all personality was scattered into the darkness. Red laces of the puppetmaster's will stitched themselves into her increasingly barren mind. The prying fingers dug deeper, into memories she never voiced. Then a howl of grief rang down the physic links as the creature saw itself in those memories. Frantically and gently every scattered piece of Graffiti's mind was fitted back into place. The puppetmaster's sobs pulsed down into her mind as it delicately arranged every alias Graffiti had ever used. The familiar presence lingered over her as she regained consciousness in the black mental sea. It offered her the most tormented and heart-felt apologies.

She projected a thought down the physic veins. _"It's all right. I've come back."_

A rare flash of joy rushed directly into her.

"_I'm not going to run away any more, Oni. Help me get in, and I will destroy this cell for you."_

On hands of hysterical happiness, Graffiti's mind was lifted to the surface of a deep, full well.

Her large brown eyes blinked open and hanging above her was the underside of the black sludge. Now it reached desperately down from a slowly rising ceiling. Iridescent and delicate human exoskeletons levitated in mid-air like glass statues. The black hands of memory and need perpetually reached toward their hollow structures. The struggling pitch sea behind the countless empty shells had a vast beauty as it stretched into an endless living sky.

"Just like watching an ocean from the shore." Graffiti said. "Only more beautiful because it's so horrible."

As she lay admiring Oni's handiwork, a slight weight stirred on her stomach. She glanced down and saw two red eyes staring at her from a transparent face.

"Glorified paperweight, GET OFF!" She swatted the water golem into a splash. When she sat up, it reformed on her shoulder.

"I hate you." She sneered.

It started to laugh.

"That's it! I'll write you into a sandwich and eat you!" Just as she pulled out her marker several small explosions burst above her. A blue streak fell to the infinite white ground.

"Mitarai-kun!" Graffiti smiled with genuine excitement. He had made it. That meant all her assumptions about his psychic powers had been right. She jumped up and landed in mid-sprint. She dodged the boxes, brooms and broken furniture that had previously lined the basement walls without breaking step. A little closer and she could see that he lay still where he fell. Her smile vanished, and she doubled her speed. There were fresh circular burns on his cloths and skin, and his back and shoulders trembled. She knelt down to look at him and realized he was only crying.

Graffiti laughed with relief just long enough for Mitarai to look up. Then abruptly, she screamed with boiling rage. "WHAT THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOU"RE DOING?!!"

"Graffiti-san, you're not hurt?" He smiled nervously. "How did you escape the threads? If I didn't know how to manipulate golems, I never could have destroyed them."

Graffiti grabbed his skirt in two tiny fists and pulled him into sitting upright. "You JERK! How dare you cry! So what if goo tried eat you. You think CRYING will fix that! You can't give up! I NEED YOU DAMMIT!"

She tried to shake some sense into him and ended up shaking herself twice as hard. Mitarai's build was slight, but Graffiti was only eighty-five pounds. "How could you! Tears are useless, STUPID! DAMN IT! I think I'm sick now." She added in a slightly soft yell and slumped against his shoulder. She leaned up against him for a long while and waited for some of the blood to leave her dizzy head.

Mitarai sat perfectly still and wondered if she was done screaming.

"Graffiti-san?" He asked after he heard a snore.

"Yes, present." She raised her hand like she was answering attendance and sat up. She looked at the broken boxes, living sky and endless white plane with bleary eyes. "Oh, right."

She gave him an apathetic grin. "Sorry, about that. Needed to relieve some stress. So, are we still killing evil? Do you know where evil is?" She surveyed the vast white nothing in all directions and concluded that all the life in this territory was in the ceiling. "Perhaps we should have made an appointment."

"It's over there." He pointed to an empty space on the void's horizon.

"Really." Graffiti squinted and still saw nothing. "Sure, why not."

"Graffiti-san, why is there a layer of air here?"He asked.

"How would I know?" She shrugged and looked away. "And don't use -san, it's annoying."

"Graffiti-chan?" He tried.

"That's a lie, and we both know it." She said flatly.

"Graffiti-kun? . . . No, even if you're . . ." He trailed off when her stare started bore holes into his forehead.

"Even if I'm what, little princess? If I'm Graffiti-kun then you'll be Kiyoshi-chan." She snorted. "Drop the honorific altogether. It's a fake name for school use, so it doesn't need one. If you don't like it, then make up your own."

"Anything I want, huh?" His eye twitched. "How about Pest-sama, or Boy-chan or Shady-chan or Barbie-kun or Bitch-dono or Evil-chan . . ."

"Wow, girlie-chan, who knew you could be creative?" She smirked.

"Who are you calling girlie?" His normally gentle voice was approaching a scream.

"Hit a nerve, did I?" Graffiti stretched her arms over her head and let them flop limply into her lap. "I suppose you've heard that daily, maybe hourly, for years given your preference for males. Is that why your classmates first made you an outcast?" She asked in an acidic voice.

Mitarai glared back. "MY life is nothing YOU need to worry about."

"Fine." She dropped her eyes. "I apologize. Maybe Bitch-dono will suit me best."

"Oh, no . . . I didn't really mean . . ." Mitarai's expression softened and Graffiti smirked.

"I'm kidding. Who really cares about names, anyway?" She turned her nose into the air as if the entire conversation was beneath her. "Now then, when I was coming down through the sludge, I woke up. I rewrote "unbindable" on myself, and the black beneath me split. I fell into this space without direct contact with our enemy. I don't know a thing about him." She lied with a beautifully sincere face. "I'm not wishing you a bad trip, but tell me you collected more information than I did."

Mitarai started to tremble again. "We can't beat him, Graffiti. When he . . . tried to pull me apart, I could see some down the binding strings. There are thousands upon thousands of dismantled minds trapped in this territory. He uses them, draws from them, and the territory expands with every mind he enslaves. The sludge never sleeps, so his power never turns off. And . . ." Mitarai bit his lip. ". . . he's looking for psychics. This territory is the size of a country. He needs to enslave psychics to maintain it. I couldn't see why. I forced an energy surge into the links after a couple minutes." He grew quiet and frowned at some terrible memory.

Graffiti trembled now from suppressing her excitement, but she made sure her eyes and mouth were suitably worried-looking. Just a couple minutes, and this golem-master had read all that from Oni's threads. It was wonderful!

"Graffiti. . ." Mitarai's voice carried pain, so she concentrated on making her face soft and sad. ". . . what he really needed was more physics. If we ran, or if we were never there at all, do you think everyone at the school would still be alright?" He never looked at her practiced worried expression. He watched the dark sky struggle. He could see the red physic veins that wrapped and punctured each distorted form and the longer blue veins that hung their hollow crystal shells below them. "I didn't mean to hurt anyone. I didn't want them all to be destroyed. Put it back! I don't want this anymore!"

"Hey!" Graffiti grabbed his jaw and forced him to look her in the eye. "You look at me, if you're talking to me. And don't go blaming us. We didn't make that mind-sucking goo."

She released his face and sat back on her heels. "I don't think the elevator stops on this floor. If this territory never sleeps, then our only way out is to knock out or kill the psychic mastermind. It doesn't matter if we have to walk to for days or if he's guarded by an army of zombies." She stood and wandered off as she spoke. "I'm going to find food. Outside off this rubbage pile, I doubt there's any on the void. You think about whether you're going off to fight an incredible enemy or giving yourself up for dead here."

"I already said I'd fight." He answered immediately. He thought of Yusuke, Kuwabara, Kurama. Every face that he'd ever called an ally ran through his mind. He wished someone was there to help him. He wondered if Genkai had received his message, and if anyone would warn the surviving members of Sensui's team.

"I'm not strong enough for this." He made sure to look directly at Graffiti when he spoke. Trails from past tears streaked down his exhausted face to a rash of bloody burns on his neck. The smile he gave her was afraid, but his blue eyes held a faint hope despite his words.

"Beautiful." She said softly to herself.

"I'm sorry, I couldn't hear you." He said politely.

"Cheetos!" Graffiti said and held up a snack-size orange bag. "That's sort-of food, right?"


	4. Oni

I'm a rather slow typist because I have to rewrite everything that I type. I can see where I want to go in my mind with this story, it's just finding the time to write (and rewrite).

Disclaimer: I do not own Yu Yu Hakusho.

Part 4-Oni

"Are we there yet?" Graffiti asked for the tenth time.

"No." Mitarai answered sharply. He kept walking towards the enemy without a glance in her direction.

"Well, how much further then? I can't see the threads." She carried a rusty pipe with a package made of old curtains and duct tape strapped to its end.

Mitarai looked at the pipe leaning against her small shoulder and shook his head. "Graffiti, if you can't see it, how are you going to fight it?"

"I'm going to beat the crap out of it with a pipe." She answered without batting an eye. "It's a void. Whatever I connect with, that's gotta be it."

"Um . . . Graffiti, since your psychic powers are drained right now, maybe you shouldn't fight." Mitarai might have to insist if she refused to stop this time.

She ignored him and flipped through the electronic photos on her cell phone. She smiled carnivorously and thrust an image in his face.

Graffiti snickered as Mitarai blushed beet red. "Yeah, that's a great snapshot, isn't it? You can tell he's a real red-head, too."

"Don't change the subject." Mitarai pushed the phone away.

"Like red-heads?" She asked mischievously.

Mitarai went from beat red to purple.

"Easy Mitarai-kun, if you forget to breath, you'll pass out." She playfully slapped him on the back a few times, and he regained his normal color.

"Do you want copies?" She started flipping through her electronic photo album again. "I used to have downloaded images, but that's no fun. Now everything I carry is a record of my life."

"So . . . you took that picture?" He could think of only one situation where a guy would pose for her like that.

"Yeah." She said without glancing up. "You know, if you like Kyo-kun that much you can have him."

"What are you saying?! Isn't he your boyfriend?" Mitarai stared at her incredulously, but he blushed a bit too.

"Kinda." She smiled as she found the picture she was looking for and passed Mitarai the phone. "Here he is at dinner. You can see what a self-absorbed asshole he is. Still, he's got a gorgeous face, doesn't he? And Kyo-kun definitely swings both ways, if you're interested."

"But . . ." Mitarai was confused. This was some kind of trick right? ". . . I'm really into someone."

"Dating?" She asked.

"Um, no, but . . ." Mitarai started to fidget. Why was she asking all this?

"If you're not dating, then it's not cheating. How about a blonde instead?" She took her phone back to look up another picture.

"What are you, a pimp? Why are you doing this?!" Mitarai was getting high-strung again.

"Because you need to unwind before you implode. You are way too serious, and I can loose one or two from my ex-boyfriend collection. Hmm . . ." She paused and considered an image. "Nah, you'd never get his weird jokes."

"You've got a collection?" He remembered Graffiti taking his picture earlier and suddenly wanted to erase it. She might start showing it to random guys to find him a boyfriend, and he didn't want her meddling. He reached over and snapped her phone shut. "You don't have to, really. I already know who I want."

"You, sure? Because I don't mind lending one out to you." She said like she was lending a book.

"Thank you, but let me handle this." He looked her in the eyes earnestly, and she melted just a little inside.

"Okay." She wore a practiced casual grin. "So when are you telling him?"

"What?" This conversation wasn't over yet?

"You said you were handling it, and you know who you want. When are you telling him?" She smirked smugly and both long eyeteeth showed.

"Um . . . Well . . ." Weren't they talking about something else? Something less uncomfortable?

"You can stall, but you can't hide. When?" She pressed.

"Well, probably . . .never." He admitted sadly.

"You're kidding! You won't take a perfectly gorgeous guy that I offer you, but you have no intention of going after the guy you want. Do I have that right?!" She yelled at him crossly.

"It's nothing you have to worry about." Mitarai said.

"Oh, bull! You obviously can't handle this if that's your best solution. I'm getting you hooked up as soon as we get back." She smiled at her generous solution.

"No!" Mitarai turned, and she clamped her palm over his mouth.

"Shut up. Your solution sucks, so you don't get to fly solo." She playfully patted his shocked face.

"But I don't want your help!" He yelled.

Graffiti sighed. Could he be more clueless? "Look. Having a love you never reveal has the same result as having no love at all. You get nothing. If you can't or won't act on it then move on." She gestured with the pipe and swung it toward their destination.

Mitarai saw the pipe pointed at the dark mass of vines that hung from the sky like a black heart. "I remember now. We were discussing you staying here."

She snorted. "We're discussing boys. Don't change the topic."

"Graffiti, I'm sorry." He stopped and snapped his fingers. The golem on her shoulder squealed and twisted itself into cords, binding her ankles and arms behind her back.

"AH! Why you jerk! No, worse, You're a masochist aren't you? PERVERT! How are dare you treat a lady this way!? I'M GOING TO RIP YOUR EYES OUT!" She screamed and struggled against the elastic bonds, but the creature only tightened.

"I already have a plan for what to do, and without your psychic powers it would be too dangerous for you." He calmly explained.

"SCREW YOU! I CAN STILL FIGHT! I CAN BEAT THE CRAP OUT OF YOU WITH MY BARE HANDS!" She pulled hard against the golem, lost her balance and face-planted.

Mitarai sighed. "I really am sorry. If I loose consciousness, the golem will be destroyed. Please wait until the other psychics come instead of fighting it yourself."

"Bull!" She said into the void floor. She worked her knees under her and pushed herself back upright. "Weren't you lamenting just an hour ago that you couldn't beat this mastermind? And message or no message, who's going to find me here? We should fight together. Don't go making some pointless sacrifice in the middle of nowhere."

"It'll be alright. We can depend on my allies, and I have a plan." He turned and started to walk toward the enemy alone.

"Hey, you jerk! Is this what you were planning all along? When you made those golems?" He didn't turn or answer her. She could tell by his stride that his mind was already set. _"Didn't give him enough points for being crafty." _She thought. The bonds were bringing back terrible memories. It hurt too much to swallow it down, so she screamed it out instead. "I HATE YOU! I WILL NOT BE TIED AND LEFT HERE! I DON"T BELONG TO YOU! I DON"T BELONG TO ANYONE!" The roiling sky directly overhead popped and a brief rain of black ooze fell over her. A strange low thunder moaned as it rolled across the void. "Oni." She said low as her wits returned. "NO, I DIDN'T MEAN THAT!" She called out to the sky. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Mitarai standing still. "Don't look at me! DON'T LOOK!" She immediately regretted her first impulse. He stood perfectly still a moment longer, his face obscured by the distance. Then he turned and continued walking away. "Hey! Wait a minute! The sky's falling over here! Untie me, damn it!" He didn't turn around again. "I know you can hear me!" She sighed and tried to think of something else besides being tied. A chuckle escaped her lips. "That didn't even make sense to me. Man, that's really bad. Pull it together, girl. You're not this weak." She bit her lip hard enough to draw blood. It was a strange rusty red. She licked it into her mouth and spat into a puddle of mental tar. Nothing happened. _"Oni, this is no time to hold a grudge. I know you can feel that." _

Oni had pulled deep inside itself after Graffiti's rejection. When Mitarai reached the central mass, not one thread lashed out against him. It was a gigantic organ of black tissue, the nerve center of the territory. It hung from the living ceiling by enormous red arteries and uncountable smaller threads of will pierced it from all directions. He put his palm up against it and felt a warm, throbbing pulse beneath the plant-like tissue. He quietly considered everything he had learned about the enemy and hypothesized it was closer to a coffin then a heart.He took one more deep breath and got to work.

He called down rain from the sky. Not the black ooze that fell from Graffiti's outburst, a steady clear rain fell with the taint of his blood. It drenched him and the outside of the sealed, organic room. More importantly, it flowed down the thick pipes into the territory's nerve center. He slowly increased his power, and the water pulled out of his cloths and hair until he was bone dry. It pulled off the void and tissue until it was a mass of water struggling to form itself against a bulge in the dark wall. He opened his territory and the wall was ripped apart as the giant golem pulled itself together from both sides. Even in its deepest sadness, Oni noticed that.

The giant organ shuddered and dozens of thick black vines shot out piercing the void floor. Every new crack in the white floor bubbled with boiling red liquid. Clear slime collected in mid-air from the new hole and fell to the ground as headless dolls with outstretched arms. Mitarai was only vaguely aware of them.

"Oh God, it's Sniper." He was partially submerged into the sludge organ's interior wall. His open eyes were empty, and his bones shone faintly through his translucent flesh. Mitarai had already guessed that the nerve center contained a psychic, but he still wasn't prepared to see this. The hole began to reseal itself.

"No!" Mitarai started to run and narrowly ducked a punch from a headless doll. He'd forgotten about them for a moment. He swung a kick at its feet and sent an order to the huge golem still perched on the organ's side. _"Keep the hole from closing. Block it open."_ It pushed its mass into the closing hole and became a thick window of water with a skull-like face. This left Mitarai alone on the ground with Oni's puppets. He stepped to the right to turn the creature's direction, then quickly dodged to the left. It swiped at him as he passed. Another doll a couple steps behind it hooked its fingers on his shirt, and swung him hard into a thick vine that pierced the floor. It felt like a metal pipe struck his back, but he couldn't stay down long. Three of them were closing in around him. Mitarai ducked down and ran between a gap in their legs. Their arms became tangled as the slime golems stuck to each other and started to merge into one creature. That bought him some time. He outran two others and reached the dangling black mass.

He started to climb it, and it shifted and squirmed under his touch. A vine wrapped his wrist and punctured his forearm. In an instant, it connected with a nerve. Oni's strong will rushed into Mitarai's mind, and his body froze in place. Oni charged in with raw power, ripping and disconnecting the thoughts from the muscles. It met no resistance until it surged into the mind's consciousness, and there it ran into a trap. Oni's thoughts split from its will as if it had run full speed onto to sword. _"Like that trick? I learned it from you." _Mitarai thought as he collected his will and laced his own mind with his psychic links, barring Oni from escape.

"_You're stronger than me, but you can't beat me in my own nervous system."_ Mitarai's thoughts roared at Oni as it fled. With its mind severed from its purpose, Oni forgot where it was or why. It rushed further and further into the deep recesses of Mitarai's mind. Mitarai caught up to it in a dark patch memory and pushed it down into the darkness like sealing it in mud. Oni began to cry.

"_What is it doing?"_ Mitarai paused for a moment. This sobbing infantile mind was the same one that tried to rip him apart when he was pulled into the sludge. The same one that had dismembered the minds of his schoolmates and left their fragments hanging from the territory's ceiling. He was sure of it. Oni started to beg through the sobs saying how afraid it was. Mitarai didn't let it loose, but he used a very gentle touch to pull open its memories.

He could see a room with high narrow windows and little light. Glass reflected in the shadows and a chemical smell burned Oni's nose. A tall man with wild gray hair smiled down at him. He gently cleaned Oni's small arm with a swab of alcohol. Oni's skin was unnaturally thin and its veins unnaturally black. It whined and kicked as the old man put a needle under the skin. "Shhh. . . Be still my pet. It will all be over soon." The man said with a flawless smile. Starting from that arm, every nerve burned like fire. Oni's scream sounded like twisting metal over glass.

Mitarai pulled back from that memory. This wasn't the mastermind. It was another trapped puppet. He reduced the pressure holding it down. _"Where are you? Where is your physical body? We can get you out."_

Brief flashes of random memories flooded Mitarai's mind.

A small child was sitting next to it with their face buried in an upside-down fairy tale singing "ring around the rosy" with anatomy lyrics.

A tall man stood in the doorway smoking a cigarette. He had a long scar over his eye and a smooth low voice. "How much longer on the psychics, doctor? You promised me strongest . . ."

There was white nothing in all directions. But with a pull, just a pull like this maybe . . . "NO! THAT'S WRONG!" The old man screamed, and Oni crumpled up.

"_Where are you?"_ Mitarai repeated, but Oni didn't answer. It poured its will into the dark memory that surrounded it, and chapter black jumped into life in Mitarai's head. Mitarai lost his concentration. Oni's terrified inhuman scream vanished down the metal links.

Mitarai was suddenly aware of his aching physical body hanging limply from his punctured arm against the side of the territory's heart. "No! I almost had him!"

He tried to regain his footing, and found that most of his body was caked with clear slime. There were lifeless puddles of slime beneath him, and no headless dolls anywhere. Mitarai had no memory of what was happening to his body while he fought the puppetmaster in his head. However, he suspected he would have drowned in slime in a few more minutes. "Maybe he almost had me." Mitarai made a mental note to never leave his body unguarded again. It was a slippery, treacherous climb to the golem's window.

Oni finally answered Graffiti's call of blood with a loud sobbing mouth forming out of the goo at her knees. "Lost did you?" She said in a flat voice. She'd been tied so long that she could hear the doctor's over-sweet voice speaking in her ear. Graffiti knew it was only bad memories playing tricks, and she refused to show that kind of weakness in front of Oni.

"Oni," She said in a perfectly composed voice. "This changes nothing. I will free you. You will just have to wait a little longer. If we press the golem-master's mind now, he might break. In the mean time, UNTIE ME!" She screamed.

Mitarai was floating in the living aquatic window when he felt his link to the smaller golem break. He looked at the black speck that was Graffiti in the distance, but saw no attackers surrounding her. _"The puppetmaster doesn't need to use his own golems." _Mitarai thought with a frown. _"He just took control of mine. I never should have left her out there alone!"_ He pushed off against his territory wall and broke through into the territory's nerve center. He paused and enjoyed being drenched as opposed to being slimed. _"He won't try to invade my mind again, or he would have shot up through the golem's link._" While he considered his options, he studied Hagari half-submerged into the organ's wall with a cluster of black ropes and psychic veins. _"I have to get him out now. I don't have much ki left, but if Oni is distracted out there . . ." _He took a deep breath. "Alright, I can do this." He said aloud. He ordered the huge golem to go and destroy anything that attacked Graffiti. It fell from the rip in the wall and the living coffin quickly sealed itself. The white light that existed without origin in the void was blocked from the sealed chamber. Mitarai smiled nervously at a passing thought. _"Now I'm fighting blind. Exactly why I stopped Graffiti."_

Mitarai forced his mind to clear and poured his energy into creating psychic linksto Hagari. He fell to his knees and started to vomit. He was weaker than he thought. He waited for his head to stop swimming, and concluded that it wasn't going to fully stop this time. He stood and started feeling around in the dark. He traced a thick psychic vine to Sniper's arm. He felt over the smooth skin until he found vein beneath the surface. He felt around in his pocket for the kitchen knife, and found he had left it, next to the first aid kit, in the classroom. He wished for both and stalled for a moment, wondering what Graffiti had packed in that ratty old curtain. He also wondered what would happen to her if both of his golems were possessed. "Damn! . . .Sorry." He said to the unconscious Hagari and bit him hard enough to draw blood.

Sniper's blood was tainted with Oni. The instant it touched Mitarai's lips he saw the sludge hands reaching over Sniper's outstretched arms. He spat it out and the vision was gone.

He put the open wound on his arm against the fresh bite and traveled down the psychic linkthrough the blood, to the nerves, to the nerve center of the territory. He looked out across a vast network of imprisoned minds maintained through the psychic nerve centers. Hagari was only the centerpoint of a single cell, in a vast multi-celled monster. _"This cell is the only one I can destroy from here." _He sadly thought looking at seas of dismembered minds stretching infinitely in all directions. He made a quiet promise to free them all. He drew on the chaotic energy from the network, from the broken minds, from himself. He gathered his will into an edge, and sliced the thick arteries that bond Sniper to the puppetmaster. The whole system shook from the shock, and Sniper's cell pulled in on itself like a newly-formed black hole.

"Thanks for the food!" Graffiti leaned happily against Jumbo-chan's side licking red liquid off her fingertips. She dipped her hand into the boiling red spring in the cracked void floor and drank from the hollow in her palm. "Seriously Oni, thank you. You have no idea what it's like to see food everywhere, and always be hungry. I can skim a little bit off of my dates, but my second stomach is always . . ." A "POW" rippled through the living ceiling and the hollow exoskeletons began to pull up into the desperate hands. The reality of the whole void flickered.

Graffiti smiled and folded her hands behind her head. "It's been nice seeing you again Oni, but my ride's here." Then the territory cell simply was not, and Graffiti sat on the basement floor.


	5. Misdirection

Sorry it took so long. I rewrote this three or four times. The next chapter should be quicker. It's already halfway done. Also, (I feel like an old coot saying this) never imitate anything Graffiti ever does. (She'll only get stranger from here.)

Disclaimer: I do not own Yu Yu Hakusho.

Part 5: Misdirection

"Well, here we are. It seems quiet enough." A tall, lanky boy with a one-foot high flattop looked through the open gate of Mitarai's school. On his right stood a broad-shouldered boy with glasses and freckles dressed in a pink school uniform. On his left was a blonde with sharp features wearing a black jacket with white shirt tails hanging out beneath it.

"With all this quiet, I wonder if it was worth skipping class." The freckled boy pushed his glasses onto the bridge of his nose. "Still, this complete silence reminds me of the hospital that the doctor controlled. This may be the calm before the storm."

The blonde's shoulders tensed at the mention of the doctor. "We'll know the situation soon enough. Master Genkai wouldn't send us out here for nothing. Keep your guard up." Kido lead Kaito and Yanagisawa into the school with his narrow eyes darting to every crevice of the abandoned hallway. He passed at the first open door and stopped. "Look there."

People were frozen like statues. Some were standing or sitting at their desks, but most were sprawled out on the classroom floor. All of their faces were contorted with terror.

"Wow, that's creepy." Yanagisawa grimaced.

"This confirms the content of Mitarai's letter." Kaito knelt down to closer examine the nearest boy. The way his hands reached toward the door it was as if he was trying to swim on the linoleum. "There seems to be no physical damage. Their minds and spirits are simply absent."

"I don't see any 'black mist'. Three thinking humans must be a target for it." Kido looked around the quiet classroom with suspicion.

Kaito pushed back the eyelids of the wild frozen eyes to further examine them. "Obviously, our enemy is engaged elsewhere. The letter stated that Sea Man and Graffiti were going to the basement to confront the attacker. We can assume that conflict is unresolved." He held the boy's wrist and timed his pulse.

"I don't like this Graffiti. A strange psychic that refuses to give her name or background, but agrees to fight for no reason." Kido turned and spotted stairs at the end of the hallway.

"Our evidence against her is circumstantial at best, but I agree that her arrival seems an unlikely coincidence. Perhaps she'd be willing to undergo Yana-kun's polygraph. That would be the simplest solution." Kaito completed his brief physical examination of the victim and followed Kido and Yanagisawa toward the stairs.

They hadn't gotten three steps before a violent shudder shook the school. Then the silence was broken with screaming chaos. Every terrified victim was wide awake in a instant, and they ran into the halls as a panicked stampede. The frantic mob swallowed them and dragged them back toward the front door.

"Don't fight them. If we do, we'll be trampled." Kido screamed out to his friends. He ran with the panicked mob towards the exit.

"I am not. NOT! T! Tea with four kinds of biscuits. B! Behave, Have, House . . .!" A pretty girl with heavy rouge was having an intense nonsense argument as she ran next to Yanagisawa.

"_What is she saying?"_ Then he noticed that the boy beside her was chewing on his own arm hard enough for blood to drip off his elbow. _"They're nuts."_ He looked around him. Another girl would comfort herself aloud then switch and start hitting her own head. The boy on the other side of him just whispered "peas and carrots" over and over again under his breath. It was a long thirty seconds to get out the front door. Yanagisawa worked his way to the edge of the insane herd and watched them stampede through the school gate. Kido and Kaito joined him when the crowd dispersed enough for them to find each other.

"Did you hear them? The mist made them crazy!"Yanagisawa looked at the stragglers of the crazy herd as they scaled the wall beside the open school gate.

"We've decided to consult Master Genkai for treatment options." Kaito stated calmly. "Also, Suweichi has returned to school. They've been preoccupied with Demon World politics, but I'm sure we can enlist their assistance."

"Right now, we need to find Sea Man." Kido looked back through the unhinged and smashed front doors. "He must have won this round, but I doubt this enemy is finished."

IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII

"Quit squirming, I'm almost finished." Graffiti dabbed rubbing alcohol onto Mitarai's burned neck.

"Ow! Ah! Do you have to use rubbing alcohol?" He leaned back from her hand a little more each dab.

"It's the only disinfectant we have, and who knows where that black slime has been." She examined her work with a professional eye. "I think that's clean enough, but I'm out of gauze. So you'll have to finish patching yourself up later." She looked at the pitiful remains of the first aid kit that she had stashed in her curtain and duct tape sack. "I can't believe we went through all of it. Even with the both of you."

Mitarai looked sadly over at Sniper who stared straight through him. Graffiti had bandaged him up as well, and he showed no reaction to the rubbing alcohol or the minor surgery. While Graffiti nonchalantly removed two protruding wires from his arms with a pocketknife, Hagari had stared expressionless into his own private void. Mitarai glanced down at the pair of tiny twisted metal bits. _"What are these things? What's wrong with him?"_

"Hey, Mitarai-kun!" When he looked up, Graffiti was sitting on Sniper's lap with her arms around his neck. "What do think? Do we make a cute couple?" She traced his collarbone with her fingertip. "Now Santa, I haven't been very good this year, but I want . . ."

"Get OFF!" Mitarai leveled a frightening stare at Graffiti who only smiled deeper. The rage in his eyes quickly cooled into a soft pain."He's practically unconscious."

"Take it easy, Mitarai-kun." She waved her hand at him playfully. "I'm just kidding. I'm far too egotistically to be with any boy who can't scream my name. Whichever name I give them." She added with a smirk.

"Graffiti . . ." Mitarai slowly and painfully rose to his feet. Now that his injuries had a few minutes to cool, everything hurt.

"You want more aspirin?" Graffiti's got off Hagari's lap with a reluctant little sigh. She studied Mitarai's strained expression, and Mitarai got a close up view of her childish face. Her wide brown eyes burned with inner fury, but her thin lips held a perfect ice cold smile.

He involuntarily jumped back a step. His head swam from the sudden jerk, and Graffiti grabbed his arm to keep him from toppling over. "If you're going to hurl again, give me warning so I can get clear."

Mitarai cracked a smile. "Alright, but leave Hagari-san alone."

"Oooh, jealous?" She leaned closer with a carnivorous grin.

The concrete floor felt like it was rising beneath his feet. "You're not my type."

Graffiti stared at him for a moment with genuine shock."Actually, I was talking about Hagari-kun. You said you knew him, and he does have a beautiful face." Her cold smile became very smug. "So you assumed it was about me, huh? I'm going to remember you made that little mistake."

Mitarai stood up straight and picked her hands off his arm. The room swayed, but he could still stand without leaning on Graffiti.

Graffiti sauntered over to her rusty pipe on the floor. "Well, if you're ready to walk, I suggest we leave."

"The message we sent will lead our allies here." He closed his eyes to block out the swaying walls, but he could still feel the room tilt.

"If I was the enemy. . ." She spun in a lopsided pirouette. ". . . and I had a large standing army of mindless slaves. I would not wait until my opponents were fully healed after a hard fight. I would come at them with my second wave while they were still to weak to, let's say, jump without getting dizzy. Especially, if I happened to know exactly where they were." She paused to beam at him, then began to spin in the opposite direction. "On the other hand . . .If I were us, I would get the hell out of here before the black slime regroups. Especially since, the people you were saving have already stampeded away." She swung her pipe toward the stairway.

Graffiti locked eyes with Mitarai, and he conceded the point. "Maybe you're right. I can't fight anymore. You've already drained your spirit energy once today. And Hagari-san . . ." Mitarai sadly looked into his vacant eyes and felt guilt tighten in his chest. "What did I do wrong?" Mitarai wondered aloud.

"Don't you even start!" Graffiti snapped. "What did I do? What did I do?" She mocked and swayed wildly. Then she pretended to faint.

Mitarai rolled his eyes.

"So" Graffiti popped back up. "Where are we going?" She inspected the twisted metal from Hagari's arms like it was new to her, and put it in her jacket pocket. "I think we should take these with us. If this was a TV cop drama, they'd definitely be evidence. Right, partner! Let's collect the K-9 unit and return to headquarters." She saluted him with her pipe.

"Don't call Hagari-san the K-9 unit." Mitarai scolded. She titled her head and smiled sweetly with a freaky gleam in her eyes.

Mitarai turned his back on her and walked over to Hagari. "Hagari-san, stand."

The living doll quietly got to his feet and stood statue still.

"So he takes orders, I'll remember that." Mitarai scowled at Graffiti over his shoulder, and she grinned with practiced apathy. "Let's blow this academic battlefield, Partner."

The three exhausted psychics exited through the back door as Yanagisawa, Kido and Kaito re-entered through the front. Graffiti glanced over her shoulder before the school vanished behind its outer wall. She saw their silhouettes through a classroom window and forced a thin smile. _"Perfect. Oni needs replacements to cover his failure, and I cannot risk contact with the copycat."_ She turned the corner and lazily draped her arms over the pipe that rested across her shoulders. "Hungry?"

Graffiti tilted her head toward a food vendor, but Mitarai shook his head. "Humanity is under attack. We can't stop now."

"Oh, Please." She grinned like humanity was nothing compared to lunch. "Humanity will still be under attack in an hour. The only difference is whether or not we're fed."

"If you don't want to fight, you don't have to." Mitarai said it with concern, but she leered at him.

"So if I don't follow your orders, I can't fight? You don't command ME!" She said acidly. "Who knows when Doll last ate, or didn't you think of that? And you can't walk too far without taking a break, anyway. Not with your blood so low."

Mitarai looked over his shoulder at Hagari who stared impassively over his head. _"I didn't think of that."_

"From now on, I'm in charge of this case, Partner.Hagari-kun, until I say otherwise, you obey only my commands. Now, follow me. We're getting lunch." She marched off in the direction of the vendor with Hagari obediently on her heels.

"What . . .?" Mitarai stared only for an instant before clenching his teeth. _"Why didn't I think of that? And I can't leave Hagari-san alone with her so . . ." _He sighed and joined Graffiti and Hagari for lunch.

"I love fried food!" Graffiti declared with a mouth full of oden. "And it will make me fatter too!" She added happily. "I want to grow. I don't care in which direction, as long as I'm not eighty-five pounds. NOTHING I eat seems to help though. You know what I mean?"

Mitarai glanced cooly in her direction. He and Hagari had finished eating forty minutes ago. "No, not really."

"Seriously? Because you look like you've got the same problem." She gestured at him casually with her chopsticks.

Mitarai's smile was strained. He didn't like sitting out in the park anyway. It was too easy for bullies to see him."Are you done eating yet, Princess Trash-compactor?"

"Princess Trash-compactor." Her eyes burned over her practiced smile. "I like that one."

Mitarai looked away rather than indulge her any further. A police car parked behind them, and a young cop analyzed them through the car window. Mitarai felt his scrutiny while Graffiti obliviously wolfed down the last of her fried vegetables. He was tall and tanned, and he watched them like wild animals had escaped from the zoo. "Graffiti, we need to leave, now."

He said low and urgent without turning his head.

Graffiti stole a glance over her shoulder. "Ah, a fellow civic servant."

The policemen cautiously approached them with a nightstick in his hand. "What-are-your-names?" He asked in a measured clear voice.

"What do you want my name to be, Handsome?" Graffiti crossed her legs, and looked like a grade school student imitating a bar singer.

Mitarai broke in before that conversation went any further. "I am Kyoshi Mitarai, sir. This is Hagari-san, and she is . . . Graffiti." It was the best name he had to give. "Is their something wrong, officer?"

The policeman looked from Graffiti's wild hair and disheveled cloths to Mitarai's calm face and bandages to Hagari's empty eyes. "Are you three skipping today?"

"Yes." Graffiti quickly answered, and Mitarai stared at her.

"So, you three haven't been to school today?" The policeman's rigid posture eased, and his voice carried hope that this was true. Mitarai looked at him quizzically and then at Graffiti.

"Nope, haven't touched the vile rat trap." Graffiti leaned in toward him and smirked wickedly. "Seriously officer, you do that uniform proud. Can I take your picture?"

"Graffiti . . ." Mitarai said through his teeth.

"He's just the jealous type." She shrugged it off playfully, but she also leaned back.

"Does he talk?" The officer nodded at Hagari, and ignored Graffiti's photo request.

"He's the quiet type. But he'll answer questions if you ask him." Graffiti felt Mitarai's eyes boring holes into her head. _"Yes, yes, I know. It's my fault for stopping so close to school."_

"Hagari-san, is it?" The officer felt a shiver run down his spine as the teen's vacant eyes looked through him.

"Yes." Hagari said in a dead voice.

"Did you go to school today?" The officer noticed that Mitarai and Graffiti exchanged a tense look. "I want him to answer." The policeman said as Graffiti opened her mouth to talk.

"I was wired into a living void of dismembered minds. I was in, and a fragment of, the extended mind of the puppetmaster. He is with me still, and distantly, I feel myself disconnected." Hagari's voice was a horrible monotone.

Graffiti flashed a wide and frigid smile. "He's talking about a video game, officer. I'm afraid he's become obsessed with it. We've been at the arcade all morning."

The policeman shot her a furious glare. "You're lying. His insanity matches the stories of your schoolmates. Until we find the cause of this sudden epidemic, all insanity victims will be gathered for questioning and quarantined."

"Quarantined!" Mitarai and Graffiti said in unison.

"Oh, Baby-blue. I'm afraid that just doesn't fit our schedule." She shook her head like she was refusing a salesman. "Hagari, pin the officer down!"

In a red blur, Hagari grabbed him by the wrist and flipped him to the ground. The policeman kicked his knee, but Hagari showed no reaction. He twisted the officer's arm behind him and stood with one foot on his back. "You're all crazy! You need help!" He shifted under Sniper's foot, and Graffiti realized that he wouldn't stay down for long.

She uncapped her marker and scrawled "thirty-second repeat" on his twitching arm. Sniper's hand slipped as the policeman twisted against his thumb, and Graffiti opened her territory. Then the policeman was gone from beneath Hagari's foot. He reappeared standing behind them.

"Hagari-san, is it?" The officer stood with his back to Hagari.

"Yes." Hagari said in a dead voice.

"Did you go to school today?" Mitarai and Graffiti started to laugh. "I want him to answer." The policeman said to the patch of grass where Hagari once sat.

"I was wired into a living void of dismembered . . ." Hagari answered like he too was on repeat.

"Hagari, stop. Only answer my questions." Graffiti took the hat off the policeman's head and wore it at a rakish angle.

"It doesn't suit you." Mitarai shook his head and smiled. "Now give it back."

"Blondie . . ." Graffiti twiddled her fingers in mock-shyness and grinned down at him like a cat with a broken-winged bird. Her eyes narrowed into angry slits. "Hagari-kun, grab Mitarai-kun and lock him into the back of the police car."

"WHAT! Hagari-san, No!" Sniper yanked him up by the arm and twisted it hard against his back. "OW! Graffiti, what are you . . .?" He clenched his teeth when Sniper pulled harder and forced him onto his toes. Hagari easily dragged Mitarai over to the car. He opened the door with his free hand , and threw Mitarai into the back. The door slammed and Mitarai immediately noticed that there was a strong wire mesh between and back seat and the front. There were also no door handles on the inside of the back doors.

"Alright, you nasty hooligan," Graffiti dropped her voice to a hoarse-sounding bass and climbed into the driver's seat. "Officer Graffiti is taking you in." She gestured at him sternly with the keys.

"Oh, God! Graffiti, please don't do this!" Mitarai begged and gripped the wire barrier with his fingers.

"Settle down back there!" She barked in the false deep voice. Then she smirked and her long eyetooth hung over her lower lip. "I like to hit back. Remember? You don't leave me tied up in the middle of nowhere while you go hog the enemy. Besides, IF we could make the cop believe that we were saving humanity, he would have given us ride." She adjusted the seat so her feet could reach and peddles and turned the key.

"Graffiti, you're going to get us arrested!" He yelled.

"They're already trying to arrest us, and quarantine us." She calmly shook her head at Mitarai for overlooking the obvious. "And we don't have time to play the helpless victim. Hagari-kun, sit in the front seat, and put on your seatbelt. Mitarai-kun, where are we going?"

"I'm not going to tell you! I don't want you driving anywhere!" He glared at her, and she smiled flawlessly.

"Do you know when you get really mad, your pupils contract into little pinpoints?"She floored the gas, and Mitarai slammed against the door. Graffiti dug a deep, wide ditch into the shoulder. She overcompensated for the drag and swerved across road. A car horn blared as a mini dodged the speeding squad car. Graffiti continued cruising down the center of a two-way street.

"Oh, God!" Mitarai curled up on the floorboard behind the driver's seat. Graffiti hit the horn, and there was a bump. She ran over something.

"Whoopsie! Oh well, the tire seems fine." She switched on the police radio. A dull voice reported information on a small riot started by insane high school students. "Mitarai-kun," She called back as she adjusted her new police hat in the rear view mirror. "Either you tell me where to go, or I pick the destination."

"_Oh, I'll tell you where to go."_ Then he started to imagine the sort of destinations Graffiti was liable to pick. He covered his face with his hands as he rocked on the floor. "Oh crap, CRAP!" He suddenly screamed. Then he took a deep breath, and moved back up onto the seat. "You know," He smiled with clenched teeth. "I also like to hit back from time to time. But since I don't want to go to a whorehouse or a yakuza hideout . . ." Just then, Graffiti pulled up beside an plain-wrapper cop car at a red light. He glared at the tiny living mess in the police hat like he was watching a bad horror movie.

Graffiti shrugged and rolled down her window. "Hi there! I'll have a double cheeseburger, no onions, an extra-large coke and a large order of fries." Then she punched the gas and barreled through the red light. Breaks screeched as a truck spun to avoid her.

"WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT!" Mitarai screamed.

"Hmm? They think we're crazy. We've got to keep up appearances." She explained as if it were good table etiquette. "It'll be a good cover story for taking the car, and whatever else we're about to do." Sirens whaled behind her. "I got enough power left to turbo the car, but I still need to know, right, left or straight at this light?"

"Why is this happening to me?" Mitarai banged his head against the wire.

"Because you tied me up." Graffiti quickly reminded him. Then her eyes lit up and an elated evil smile spread across her mouth. "Forget directions. I know where we're going." She scrawled "turbo" on the dashed and clenched her teeth as her power stretched across its second division of territory. The speed increase pressed them all into the seats, and the street ran beneath them like a flash flood. The squad car literally flew halfway down a steep hill and Graffiti threw both hands up like she was on a roller coaster. "Now, this is driving!"


	6. The Chop Shop

Disclaimer: I do not own Yu Yu Hakusho.

The Chop Shop

"Kyo-kun! My red-hot baby, your favorite little cutie is here with new business." A hub-cap fell off the squad car as Graffiti slung out of the driver's side window. A turbo sideswipe with a post box had left a dent that prevented her door from opening.

"Frankie!" A redhead in his late teens wiped the grease from his hands onto his stained jeans. He had a lean, wiry build with sharp, handsome features and conceited almond-shaped eyes. He abandoned the partially dismantled exhaust system that was laid out on the garage floor, and smiled arrogantly as he strutted over to the tiny girl. He affectionately curled his index finger under Graffiti's chin and titled her face up towards him. "Well trouble, what have you been up to?" She gave him a knowing smile and looked back at the car. He followed her gaze to the silent, tall teen in the passenger's seat. "Not bad, is he a present for me?" Kyo said low with a wicked smile. Then Mitarai sat up in the back seat looking like he wanted to strangle someone and throw up at the same time.

Kyo paled. He shot a piercing glare at Graffiti. She smiled flawlessly and very slightly inclined her head for a nod. "Well then," He ran his fingers through his swept-back red bangs. "I suppose I'll entertain our savior." He put his foot against the car's side to yank open the dented, windowless back door. Mitarai jumped as the ruined door was wrenched off its hinges and banged against the asphalt. Kyo leaned in and flashed a winning smile. "You must be Kiyoshi-kun. Call me Kyo-kun."

Mitarai recognized him from Graffiti's photo collection, and blushed deeply.

"_That's an encouraging start."_ Kyo smiled as he gripped Mitarai's wrist and pulled him out of the car. "Don't worry about this old wreck. It'll be parts by tonight." He winked, and Mitarai nervously dropped his eyes. Kyo smiled at slight blonde who blushed and shifted his feet. The air felt hot and pressurized, and he really wanted his hand back.

"_Must be the shy type. I'll take it slower."_ He released Mitarai's wrist and turned to Graffiti. Kyo raised an eyebrow at the full-force inferno that burned behind her perfect smile. _"Interesting. Frankie's never been the possessive type. I'll have to show her more attention."_ He smiled at Graffiti and affectionately kissed her hand. "My dear Frankie, while I fix your little problem, perhaps you could fix one of your wonderful meals. I have so missed your cooking." The inferno dwindled to ash.

Graffiti smirked and shook her head. "Kyo-kun, you are good."

He took the keys from her hand with a sultry look. "I've got to keep you coming back for more, my Frankie." Then Kyo leaned through the driver's side window and flashed a smile at Hagari. "You too, Handsome, go on upstairs with your friends." Hagari stared ahead like Kyo wasn't even there, and Kyo's jaw dropped for a moment with shock.

"Hagari-kun doesn't talk much." Graffiti casually twirled a blue lock of hair. "However, he will do anything I say. Get out of the car, go inside that building and sit down, Hagari-kun."

Sniper followed her directions without hesitation or emotion. Kyo glared at him.

"I'll be up in a few hours." Kyo said shortly, and slid into the driver's seat. He fired up the engine and drove the rattling squad car into the garage.

Graffiti stomped on the broken car door to knock loose what was left of the window glass. "So, is he as red-hot as the snapshot?" She smiled broadly to show both long eyeteeth while glass crunched under her foot.

"He's gorgeous." Mitarai admitted, and the last of the blush left his cheeks. "You really weren't kidding about his ego though."

Graffiti smirked. "Kyo-kun is the most beautiful guy in the world, just ask him." She stretched her hands high above her head, and wandered toward the garage. "I think I'll visit with Kyo-kun for a while. It has been a long time."

"Graffiti, wait." She paused and turned an ear in Mitarai's direction. "Why are we here? We can't go visiting all your old boyfriends with that horrible black mist out there."

Graffiti sighed like saving humanity was very troublesome. "We need to ditch the car and change our cloths. We look like refugees from the hospital, and the police are quarantining every kid wearing our uniforms. Besides, Kyo-kun will give us a free dinner." She added with a smile.

Mitarai just stared for a moment. _"Nothing's more important to Graffiti than her stomach, I guess."_

She waved a V for victory and continued strolling toward the garage. "It'll be fine. I'll make dinner in about an hour, and we'll be on our way long before nightfall."

Mitarai watched her walk away for a minute. Then he put his hands in his pockets and slunk up the metal stairs to the living quarters above the garage. His stomach was doing flips. _"Must be from Graffiti's driving."_ He opened the door and whacked Hagari in the back. Hagari showed no reaction and continued sitting directly in front of the door. Mitarai squeezed through the quarter-open gap. _"She should have told him to sit in a chair when he got inside."_ Mitarai glared down at the floorboards like he could see through them by staring hard enough. _"We're wasting all this time just so she could visit Kyo-kun."_

Graffiti stared up at the ceiling of the garage. She had the vague idea that some rodent was staring down at her from the exposed beams.

"Distracted, my pretty girl?" Kyo wrapped an arm around her small waist and pulled her against his stomach. "What could possibly be more important than me right now?"

"Nothing, my red-hot baby." Graffiti brushed her multi-colored hair behind her shoulder. "Drain only what you need. I've fed from Oni's energy recently, but I have a couple major battles to fight tomorrow."

Kyo smiled and his two long eyeteeth hung over his bottom lip. Graffiti draped her arms over his shoulders as Kyo bent down towards her exposed neck.

BANG! The ceiling shook. "Graffiti! Get up here!" Mitarai screamed down through the ceiling.

Kyo held her a little tighter. "What's this about? If he's jealous, I'm fine with him joining in."

"I'd rather not explain why we have two stomachs." Graffiti said dryly. She kissed Kyo lightly on the cheek and pushed off his chest with both palms. Before he was over the shock, Graffiti was halfway up the stairs.

Frankie! Don't go!" He called after her.

She leaned over the metal railing and blew him a kiss. "It's just a raincheck, my red-hot baby. If I don't go up, Mitarai-kun might come down." She ran up the remaining stairs two steps at a time.

"That nasty, savage little blonde." Kyo growled. He kicked the squad car and left yet another large dent. Then he smiled. "Doesn't matter. He's just a part for Doctor Stine's machine."

Graffiti squeezed through the quarter-open door. "Hagari-kun, go sit in a chair." The silent teen moved to an old wooden chair at the formica kitchen counter. The large room was painted pumpkin orange with a white patch in the corner. In that corner was a small kitchen that was separated from the larger room by a long counter. Worn plaid and wooden chairs were arranged in groups around coffee tables with magazines and small TVs. Kyo's living room doubled as a waiting room for his customers.

Look! Look at this!" Mitarai urgently pointed at an old color TV with a remote. Teenagers ran across the screen smashing store windows and deliberately cutting their arms with the broken glass. They pulled the arms and heads off of the manikins and left the designer clothes untouched.

Graffiti flopped into a sagging orange plaid chair. "That's just our old schoolmates out on the town. Oh, wait." She looked a second time at the screen. "Those uniforms aren't from our school."

"Yes." Mitarai nodded with wide, frightened eyes. "And it's happening on the far side of town. Don't you see? Another school has been attacked! Graffiti, we can't wait any longer! It's spreading!"

Graffiti watched the screen with real fascination. "So it appears." She said coolly. _"What is Oni doing? Only another puppetmaster should be a challenge for him. Has Doctor Stine found out? No, there is no reason for him or Oni to release captive minds." _She bit her lip and racked her brain. She could only theorize that another strong psychic had broken one of Oni's cells. "I apologize for the delay, Mitarai-kun. It seems we're much shorter on time than I thought."

Mitarai smiled to hear the serious note in her voice.

"But that's no reason to skip dinner." Graffiti hopped out of her chair and walked lazily into the kitchen. "I'll start cooking right away."

Mitarai sighed._ "I should have known. She still won't leave without eating."_ Then Mitarai felt an icy stare boring holes into his back.

"Oh, Kyo-kun, come in." Graffiti greeted him like it was her house. "We'll have to leave immediately. Something beyond our control has come up." Kyo stopped glaring at Mitarai and raised an eyebrow at Graffiti. Graffiti nodded seriously and continued speaking in an energetic voice. "We need to borrow some clothes. The most ordinary you have in your collection, please."

Mitarai glanced back. _"Collection?"_

"Hagari-kun, Go with Kyo-kun and let him change your clothes. " Graffiti's inspected each knife in the knife rack for the sharpest edge. "And if he tries to seduce you in any way, break his neck." She finished cheerfully.

Kyo looked apprehensively from the perfectly smiling Graffiti to the vacant-eyed Sniper who was already walking towards him. Hagari looked at Kyo with a stare that was more cold and lifeless then any doll. Kyo shuddered, but he also smirked. "What kind of hawk is afraid of the chicken?" Hagari stood motionless and empty a few inches from Kyo's face. Kyo turned blue and started to sweat. "Well, fine! What's a handsome face with that personality!" Kyo growled and stalked off down the hall. "Come on, freak."

Hagari followed Kyo across the creaky floor. "Oh, by the way," Graffiti said lightly as she laid a chicken breast across the cutting board. "Not only did we steal a cop car, we fought with the police officer and were seen in the car by another police officer." Kyo stared. "Oh, and I stole his hat." Graffiti produced the police hat from her jacket like a magic trick and put it on her head. Then she contentedly started slicing the chicken.

"Frankie, you're not crazy, you're stupid!" Kyo said sharply, and Graffiti blew him another kiss. He threw up his hands and walked out with Hagari trailing behind.

"_Stupid? Definitely crazy."_ A faint smile tugged at the corners of Mitarai's mouth. "What did you mean by collection?" Mitarai called to Graffiti without taking his eyes off the ongoing riot program. _"Oh, she's in my class."_ He thought automatically as a bony, mousy girl ran behind a parked car.

"Kyo-kun is into role playing and collects costumes of various sizes. Though a lot of his collection is really just clothes people have left behind." Her knife was moving so fast that Mitarai couldn't make out what she was chopping. It sounded like a hard vegetable. "Are you staying the night with him?"

Mitarai blanched, but quickly recovered. "No, you said we'd be gone before nightfall."

She waved it off. "Yes, yes, saving people, evil monsters, yadda-yadda. Do you think he's hot?" She stopped chopping and waited for the answer.

Mitarai watched policemen corral a crazy boy in a wrecked grocery store. "Yes and no." He tried to sound cold, but his voice was more sad than icy.

"It either happens or it doesn't Mitarai-kun." She stared at him to extract a clear answer, and Mitarai continued to watch TV. "You're impossible. I don't know why I try." Graffiti returned to chopping vegetables with greater force and speed.

"Do you have any allergies?" She asked after a few minutes of stubborn silence.

"Hmm? Bee Stings?" Mitarai started to flip through the channels and saw about half were covering the insane children. The other half insisted on showing daytime soaps.

"I'm not cooking bees." Graffiti scraped red and green peppers into a pan.

"Oh, I don't have any food allergies." Mitarai leaned over the arm of his chair to look down the hallway. _"Even with Graffiti's instructions, maybe I should have gone with Hagari-san."_

"You're kidding, right?" Graffiti said from behind the open refrigerator door. "I assumed you'd have a list from here to China."

"Why did you think that?" Mitarai finally turned and looked Graffiti in the eye. She slammed the refrigerator door with her hip and grinned mischievously. Both her long eyeteeth hung slightly over her bottom lip.

"Well, my neck's not broken-yet." Kyo strutted into his living/waiting room. "Still, I think you'll agree the results are fabulous." He grandly gestured at the empty air behind him.

Both Mitarai and Graffiti sighed. "Hagari-kun," Graffiti shouted down the hallway. "Come back into the living room and sit in a chair."

The tall teen walked straight and silent into the room and Mitarai's jaw dropped. Hagari wore a long black wig with two long braids pulled back from and temples and clasped behind his head with a simple gold clip. He still wore his red jacket, and equally red lipstick. Underneath the open jacket was a tight white turtleneck over some very convincing breasts. The black skirt was a thigh-length, narrow and slit in the back. The black leather boots had two-inch heels, but Hagari walked across the floor like he wore heels everyday. Mitarai stared at him as he walked over to the chair by the counter. _"Damn! If I didn't know that was Hagari-san . . ." _His eyes wandered to Hagari's tight black skirt. _"I wonder if the breasts are the only padding Kyo-kun used? The way it fits his . . ."_ A few thoughts suddenly sprung to mind and Mitarai thought his face would burn off. Mitarai covered his smile with his hand and resolutely returned to staring at the television.

Graffiti saw Mitarai's face flush and chuckled. "Not bad, Kyo-kun. You got him into a skirt without getting your neck snapped. Nice eye candy, too." She started the rice and grinned evilly at Mitarai. "You're up next, wallflower."

Mitarai cringed and wished that he could sink into the earth through the chair. "Um . . . I really don't want to . . ." He started to protest timidly, and Kyo waltzed over with a scheming, wide grin. ". . . dress like a girl." He shrank back from Kyo, and the arrogant redhead leaned over his chair.

"Come on, now," Kyo gently ran his fingertips across Mitarai's cheek. "You already have such a beautiful face, and you can't wear that stained uniform anymore." He looked closer at Mitarai's clothes and his eyes widened with interest. "Are those blood stains?" Kyo pressed his palm against a large pale-red stain on Mitarai's chest and effectively pinned him against the chair. "What did a cute little blonde like you do, to hurt yourself so badly?"

Kyo put his knee on the chair between Mitarai's legs and used both hands to grip his arms. He looked at him with hungry, seductive eyes. "K-kyo-kun? W-what . . .?" Mitarai's voice squeaked and his heart raced. His mind scrambled for what to do, and Kyo leaned in closer.

"Clang!" Graffiti threw the knife into the steel sink and dented it. "This blade's lost its edge, Kyo-kun." She announced loudly.

Kyo smirked._"Frankie's jealous again is she? Well, she should have fed me earlier."_ He glanced up, and his smile instantly disappeared. Frankie's flawless smile and apathetic demeanor were gone, and she stared him down with her real face.

Kyo jumped back and turned to the wall, sheet white and shaking. Mitarai looked back at Graffiti. She smugly stirred the chicken over a high heat and started to add the vegetables. A queasy feeling churned in his stomach. Mitarai wasn't sure if he was grateful for the rescue or annoyed at the interruption. "Um, Kyo-kun . . ." He took a deep breath. ". . . I know that I look feminine, but I really hate when people . . . make fun of that, so . . .I know, I may blend in better that way, but I . . ." He could still feel his heartbeat against his ribcage.

"Yeah, sure." Kyo broke in with a trembling voice. "Whatever you want. We can do that." Graffiti smiled as Kyo lead Mitarai out of the room without daring to look back.

She turned the heat down on the stove and pulled one of the wires from Hagari's arm out of her jacket pocket. "Just you and me now, Handsome." She tilted her head and perfectly smiled at Hagari. "You're going to be my witness."

IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII

"What have you discovered?" A tall, brown-haired teen with a blue headband strapped across his forehead sat in front of an open silver briefcase on the steps of a temple. A screen in the briefcase's lid flickered into focus, and a blue ogre beamed at him idiotically.

"It's so good to see you, sir. I want you to know that even in your exile, I have remained completely loyal." The ogre proudly struck his bare chest with his fist. "Some of the ogres from accounting were gossiping about you at the water cooler, but I defended your decision to support Yusuke-san all the way! Do you know what Margarete from human resources . . ."

Koenma cut off the office gossip. "What have you discovered about this new psychic? Was she in our files of paranormal humans? Was she in our records of criminal demons?"

The ogre smiled awkwardly and nervously scratched his head. "Well, actually, I can't find her at all."

Koenma dropped his head in disgust. "How many hundreds of years have you been shuffling papers?! We have records on every human who ever lived!" He yelled into the briefcase.

George put his arms over his head like Koenma might hit him through the screen. "But . . .but, sir. It's hard going through all those files with so few workers. I'm not questioning your decision, but I can't trust every ogre to keep this search a secret. Please sir, when are you going to make up with your father? Even if you do get spankings, don't you want to come back to Spirit World?" He pleaded with watery puppy-dog eyes.

Koenma's teenage face regained its normal bored-with-existence expression. "Actually, I have been thinking about that myself, which is rather scary, because I'm much smarter than you." He said with perfect self-confidence. "I have influence with the three kings of Demon World through their second-in-commands. With the situation in Demon World intensifying, my Father must keep the SPF on standby. He can't afford to waste resources on this relatively minor outbreak of paranormal activity. Not with a war between the Demon World and the Spirit World hanging in the balance." Koenma rested his chin on his hand and considered his options. George stared hopefully and held his breath. "Arrange a meeting with King Yama. It would be in everyone's best interest if I was reinstated."

"YES!" The ogre burst into joyful tears. "OH, you've made the right decision, sir! I'll tell your honorable father right now!" He ran out the door yelling, "We're going to be a family again!"

"Wait . . .!" Koenma sighed. The screwball ogre was already gone._ "I'll have to find out if anything matches Kurama-san's description of the black mist later." _He closed the briefcase and gazed idly at the metallic cover. _"Father . . . if I go back, I won't obey your commands blindly.  
Should a servant of the Spirit World king act on his own judgement?"_


	7. Witness

Sorry it took so long. I've been moving and sick. At this rate, it'll take me years to finish. I got to pick up the pace.

Disclaimer: I do not own Yu Yu Hakusho.

Witness

"Feel my sword, you disgusting blob!" The tall red-headed teen raised a blade of shining energy over his head with a primal yell. A calmer boy with longer red hair raised his arm out into the blade's path. "What the . . .!?" The tall boy sputtered and tripped over his own feet to avoid cutting his friend's arm. "What the hell you'd do that for? Your arm could be in pieces now!" He barked and waved his now empty fist.

"You would never harm a friend like that." He answered in a calm, soft voice. "I need you to hold back this time. Doctor Kaimaya's mind was left disconnected when you cut open the last territory's nerve center. I propose we dissolve the bonds from the inside, and allow the psychic to free himself." He reached into his pocket and pulled out a handful of black oval seeds.

"What are those? Some kind of demon world magic beans that eat mind-sucking goo?" Kuwabara leaned over and intensely scrutinized the little seeds. "Looks pretty ordinary."

"They're watermelon seeds." Kurama said pleasantly.

"Huh?" Kuwabara stared at him. "You mean just round and green and striped, that watermelon?" He moved his hands around an imaginary melon in mid-air.

Kurama nodded. "I saved them from my lunch. All I need is a vine network to serve as an additional channel for the disconnected thoughts and energy. An ordinary human-world plant has less chance of unpleasant side-effects in this situation."

"Watermelon." The large boy scratched his red slicked-back hair. "Well, I guess if you can kill people with roses, then you can save them with watermelon."

Kurama smiled and pressed the seeds against the territory's black heart with the palm of his hand. Instantly, tiny pale green sprouts curled out from beneath his palm. The plant spread widened leaves of deeper shades of green, and put down deep and burrowing roots as the vines quickly spread across the dark tissue surface. The vines blanketed the surface until it was one huge hedge and wrapped their way up the thick pipes toward the ceiling. It was then Kurama felt a mind starting to stir within the living coffin. _"Good. The psychic can feel the additional channels_._ Now, if that ceiling is living . . ." _Suddenly, thick black vines shot out from the newly green mass and pierced the void floor. Red liquid bubbled up from the broad cracks.

"Eww. The floor's bleeding! What sicko made this territory?" Kuwabara grimaced as the red liquid pulled itself together in the form of a person. "What no headless goo dolls this time? Well, that's fine!" A spirit sword shot up in his fist. "Those gummi dorks were too easy anyway! Bring it on!"

The red liquid swirled upward as if pouring up into an invisible human-shaped container. Red splashed over a sadistic grin and wild hair. Then it twisted down the half-formed arm with a long, slim round extension.

"What's that supposed to be? A gummi pipe?" The middle-school punk said with instant recognition of its weapon.

Another splash of red flashed an even wider grin, and the half-formed creature lunged at Kuwabara. The red flooded the half-formed pipe solid red as the ill-made creature raised it against Kuwabara's energy blade. A rotten, burning smell filled the air as the energy sword connected against the solid red weapon. An orange blaze broke them apart, and red splashed across the little creature's maniac grin.

"What the hell is this thing? Feels wrong somehow, fighting it." Kuwabara muttered to himself. Red continually churned inside its invisible shell. It crouched and lunged again. Kuwabara moved to block its pipe with his sword, and the red pipe suddenly split. It hit his face and stomach like two halves of a speeding brick. "Oof!" Kuwabara stubbled back, and the pipe had already reformed in the monster's shifting hand. The red rod connected under his jaw and sent the huge boy flying to the white ground.

"Kuwabara-kun!" Kurama called out without taking his palm off of the growing seeds. His green eyes glanced quickly to the dark writhing sky. _"Just a little bit further. The vines haven't finished connecting to the ceiling."_

"I'm fine." Kuwabara wiped a trickle of blood from his mouth and got to his feet. The creature waited patiently. Kuwabara couldn't see it right then, but he could feel its twisted smile. "I've taken much worse hits than that." He brandished his energy blade. "Oh! So you're getting scared now are you? Calling for your little friends? Well, I beat one of the four Saint Beasts and a Toguro brother! An army of you bad-blood shrimps can't take me down!"

The creature glanced over its shoulder at the red blob starting to take humanoid shape behind it. A red worried frown splashed across its face. It ignored Kuwabara and dashed toward Kurama. A smokescreen instantly spewed from Kurama's free arm, and the creature stopped abruptly just outside mist.

"Where are going, you twisted freak? Your fight is with me! Sword get long!" Kuwabara's spirit sword extended at the creature, and the red enemy easily jumped away.

It landed playfully on one ill-formed foot, and mouthed the words "too slow" through an unstable smile.

Then the sky shook with a rumble that was closer to an earthquake than thunder. A wooden, knarled watermelon vine as thick as tree burst through the roof of the leafy mass and shot into the ceiling like a geyser.Kurama slowly walked out of the dissipating mist. "Control has been transferred. The imprisoned psychic will pull his own mind together, and collapse his portion of the territory in the process." The sky shook and began to recede like the massive vine was a straw sucking it in. "What is your purpose in creating a territory with nothing but broken minds and detached spirits? Why do you enslave so many innocents?!"

The creature set its feet for another attack. Then a red bullet passed through the ill-formed enemy, and it vanished in a splash. Behind the destroyed monster, the second monster had completed forming. It was taller and a full, solid red. In its scarlet hand was a fully formed gun that still pointed to the red splatter on the void floor.

"Huh? Aren't they on the same side?" Kuwabara glared at the treacherous gunman. "Hey monster, that was your teammate!"

It mouthed the word "no" and turned the gun barrel to the rising, misty ceiling. Then, as if a switch had been flicked, the territory was gone. Kurama and Kuwabara stood in a silent movie theater. Around them, people stirred and trembled as if waking up from a terrible dream. The comment "What happened?" was repeated several times with no satisfactory answer. More than a few started to cry, and some ran out of the theater fearing another attack. Kurama stared thoughtfully at the empty movie screen as his mind gathered all the evidence.

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"Well, that was a fun little scuttle, wasn't it?" Graffiti yanked the metal bit out of her palm and put it back in her pocket. She twisted the metal in Hagari's hand as she pulled it out. "Treacherous little pet aren't you?" Her wicked smile spread up to her cheekbones. "That body was made of Oni's liquid energy. I can't be destroyed along with it. It was just a rental." She waged her finger. "As a past psychic in Oni's network, you should have known that. Or are you that desperate?" She turned down the edge of his turtleneck to expose his neck and leaned in to whisper in his ear. "Does it bother you to see and hear and think, and not be able to act? Do you hate knowing what will happen, and being powerless to stop it?" She bared her fangs.

"Graffiti! Kyo-kun says it's your turn." Mitarai called from down the hall.

She quickly straightened up and turned up the heat on the stove. _"Damn that clueless pest! That's the second interruption tonight!" _She stirred the food and muttered to Hagari. "Don't think you're in the clear. I've got a long memory."

Mitarai stood by the countertop and brushed back his black hair. It hung in his eyes now that it had been straightened. He wore a button-down white shirt with a broad blue strip running down the right side. His pants were slightly oversized, worn jeans that frayed at the edges. He still wore his original shoes, but who would notice that? Dark brown contacts covered his blue eyes. "I was trying to blend in as much as possible." He brushed his bangs back once again.

"Have you ever tried to cover up your non-Japanese eyes and hair before? It's convincing, and yet, it's weird. The exact shape of your features is off." Graffiti smirked and traced the shape of his eye in the air between them.

"It's close enough." He crossed his arms and looked away. "And I'm not dressing as a girl, if that's what you're thinking."

"Who? Me?" Graffiti batted her eyes in mock innocence. She turned off the stove and started opening random cupboards in search of plates. "I might have been a little disappointed . . .You would have made such a pretty girl." She studied his features again with a whimsical and evil smile.

"What?" Mitarai asked defensively.

"Weird." She said, and returned to searching the cupboards. She sniffed the air, and smelt a faint decay like swampwater. _"Hmm_. _Why is Oni pushing so hard all of the sudden?"_ She methodically arranged sliced peppers on the plates in a fan pattern. "Mitarai-kun, could you open a window? It's getting hot in here." She hurriedly dispersed the chicken and rice as he walked over to the window. _"Going to have to eat and run. Not necessarily in that order!"_

"Graffiti . . ." Mitarai said in a frightened voice as he stared down at the ground outside.

"_Oh, whatever could it be?!"_ A sarcastic voice quipped in her head as she munched on a slice of pepper. "Yes?"

"We need to get out. Now!" The slight boy backed up a few steps and started to shake.

"_Oooh, the suspense. What could be at the window?"_ The sarcastic thoughts continued. She shoved the rest of the pepper in her mouth along with a couple strips of chicken. "Thrph blah musht?" She said with her cheeks round with food like a chipmunk.

"You don't ever stop eating do you?" Mitarai snapped.

She shrugged and started on the rice. _"The more I fill my first stomach, the less my second stomach needs. Be glad I prefer human food to humans, wallflower."_

The building shook from its foundation. "Woah! An earthquake!" Kyo ran out into the living room with a shiny red rag in his hand. He looked around at the walls like they might cave in at any moment.

Mitarai felt a weight in his chest. _"Oh, no. Kyo-kun is going to loose his house, and his workplace, because we came here."_

"Kyo-kun, I do love that little red number, but it's got to be somethingI can wear in public." Graffiti gave him a sultry wink.

Kyo smiled broadly and ran his fingers through his long bangs in a practiced fashion-model pose. "Can't blame a guy trying, my pretty girl." He looked at the red rag with obvious disappointment, and went back for another costume.

"Um, What was . . .?" Mitarai glanced over at Graffiti's wicked smile and nervously stopped in mid-question.

"Curious?" She tilted her head ever so slightly and smiled maniacally.

Mitarai thought about it for a second. "No." He decided to say. "I'm just going to stand here and wait for the mist to rise up under the door and through the floorboards. Because I seem to be the only one who cares if we get eaten, or the house gets sucked into oblivion, or if all of humanity gets enslaved to an evil goo-master . . ."

"You know you're just babbling to yourself right now, don't you?" Graffiti cut him off. She started wrapping the food and plates up with seran wrap. "We'll eat this on the way." She added with sudden cheerfulness. "And we'll leave right now, my little worry-wart." She stretched over the counter to pat Mitarai's tense shoulder.

Then the floor burst. A 10-foot round black tentacle swept around the room and absorbed them the instant it hit.

"_Oni, this isn't plan B."_ Even though Graffiti could feel Oni's mind in the darkness, his attention was turned away from her. _"HEY! I"M TALKING TO YOU!"_ She felt no response. Graffiti tried to walk in the pitch nowhere, but she suspected Oni had her on a large psychic treadmill. "I suppose I should be glad he didn't tie me up." She mumbled under her breath. "ONI!" She screamed out.

"Oni is unavailable, Miss Stein. He is capturing Sea Man, because you have failed to do so." An eerie smooth voice echoed through the darkness.

"And who are you, Slick?" She snapped at the disembodied voice.

"An employee of your father, the good doctor." The voice filled the still dark as if it emanated from the air itself.

"_Good doctor!"_ She suppressed a snarl and smiled beautifully instead. "I seem to be out of the loop. What's my part in this new plan? And what's yours?"

"Be at ease, Miss Stein. We have everything well in hand." The voice faded into the nothing.

"_Well in hand."_ Graffiti's smiled to expose both long eyeteeth. _"If I had a thousand dollars, I'd bet it on Mitarai-kun."_

Pain shot down Mitarai's nerves followed by a slow, dead numbness which he liked even less. There were no small snake-like links to destroy this time. He was drowning in a liquid pocket of blinding cold light. He inhaled, and saw rows of young bodies laid out down a hallway. "What do you think, Oni? I'm going to make you some siblings."

Mitarai held his breath, and felt a foreign will scratching cautiously at the edges of his awareness. _"I'm in the puppetmaster's consciousness. This Oni couldn't beat me in my mind, so he's submerging me in his." _The scratching became clawing. Mitarai sent one fine thread of his will through the claw's controlling nerve. A tiny metallic shriek rang and the scratching stopped. Now, it only waited for Mitarai to breath again.

Mitarai took a deep breath of the light, and his body became even colder. He saw bubbles rising and a picture book pressed up against a door of steel and glass. "Can you see it, Oni?" A high voice said from behind the steel. "Bird, Oni. This is a bird."

Mitarai held his breath again. _"I thought so. Oni is an imprisoned child." _He took another breath, and it felt as if his limbs were absent. The bright cold pressed against his face and chest eagerly. Screams were echoing down a long hallway. They were timed. One horrible scream, then a few minutes of muffled crying, then another screamechoed. Oni pressed his small hands against the glass. His arms were punctured with many black and copper wires. Mitarai felt his confusion.

He held his breath. _"That's enough. I know this enemy. If I inhale more, my mind will start freeze up." _Mitarai gathered some of Oni's cold energy that circulated in his body and pressed it into a dark patch of his memory. Once again, chapter black sprang to life only now it was broadcast into the cold light of Oni's consciousness. Mitarai deliberately chose a scene of Nazi medical experiments. Oni screamed and thrashed as he struggled to run away from his own mind.

"This is for your good as well as ours. Tell me where you are." Mitarai gritted his teeth to the images surrounding him, but Oni was in a blind panic. Mitarai cut the broadcast, and Oni's crying blared loudly all around him. "We can get you out, Oni. You don't have to be an experiment anymore. Just tell me where to find you." Oni's crying softened, and Mitarai could feel his attention on him. "I can free you."

"The doctor . . ." A small, young voice sniffled. "Doctor Stein is going to be so scary, so scary mad." He started to cry again. Around Mitarai the cold light dissolved into a still nothing. "I'm the puppetmaster! I supposed to beat anyone! Anyone!"

"_Doctor Stein. Finally, we know who's doing this."_ Mitarai sighed in relief and found he could breath with no ill effects. "Oni, where . . ."

"I don't know! I don't know!" Oni said in a tantrum. "I've never been outside of the lab. Trans Labs, I think. I don't know what's outside!"

"_Doctor Stein at Trans Labs."_ Mitarai smiled. "Thank you, Oni. Just hang on a little longer. We're coming to rescue you." Then a shock wave rippled through the darkness.

On the far side of the territory cell, Hagari had formed another temporary body out of the red liquid energy that ran under the void floor. He shot another round of red bullets though the thick pipes to the territory's psychic heart. The tissue shreaded, and the massive organ cracked the white floor as it hit.

Oni felt the territory's cell collapsing. "No telling on me!" He yelled. "O.K.? Please!"

"No need for him to tell. I've heard everything." An eerie smooth voice said.

Mitarai remembered that same voice speaking from the lost space inside an apparition. "Itzuki-san? But it can't be." Then the territory flickered out.

Mitarai was leaning against the formica counter. Hagari sat statue still. Graffiti promptly returned to eating.

"So, that was fast." Graffiti shoveled rice into her mouth as she spoke. "Of course, this is the second fight, and this time you know that puppetmaster's tricks."

"I've put Oni in danger." Mitarai lamented softly.

Graffiti bit through her chopsticks.


	8. A Hard Fall

I wanted this chapter to be serious, but then it funny again. Oh well, that's what I get for introducing cross-dressing. Next chapter will get serious. (I've already finished the rough, so I can say this.)

Disclaimer: I do not own Yu Yu Hakusho.

A Hard Fall

Graffiti rolled the bit-off chopstick tips around on her tongue while Mitarai's voice drifted around her like a song on a distant radio. "The puppetmaster is only a child. He doesn't want to hurt people. He's only afraid of this Doctor Stine . . ."

"_So Mitarai-kun got Oni to talk, and Oni was caught . It's not related to the revolt directly, but Oni is now under pressure. His actions will be reviewed." _Behind Graffiti's fixed and attentive smile, she crunched down on the chopstick ends. Graffiti chewed the wood into fine splinters and swallowed. "So we're going to Trans Labs now? Or are we still going to Master Genkai's?" The air was still as Graffiti considered how to speed up her trap. _"We have to convince Blondie that we're good little victims. He already wants to help Oni, but I doubt he's willing . . ."_

Mitarai leaned his elbows on the countertop and stared earnestly into Graffiti's carefully controlled face. The brown contacts made his eyes look deeper, and they shone with a peculiar hope underneath a constant melancholy. Graffiti felt her temperature rise. _"Ack! NO! Don't do that. I'm trying to think." _

"Graffiti, I made a promise to Oni." He brushed the straightened black bangs out of his eyes.

His face was only a few inches from hers, and Graffiti could feel her heartbeat. She had an odd idea that it must be shaking the counter, but managed a vicious smirk anyway. "Fraternizing with the sludge master? Tsk, tsk, little boy scout." She winked and wagged her index finger in the narrow gap between their noses. "Enemies are for killing." Her smile stretched to show both long, pointed eyeteeth up to the gums.

"Graffiti, he's been made into an experiment. If he could get out he would . . ." Mitarai stopped to lick his lips and gather his nerve. "You know, once, I chose to be on the wrong side." He looked directly into her eyes, and Graffiti couldn't keep a faint blush off of her cheeks. "I took all the hate that everyone poured onto me, and I became it. I lived it. I tried . . .I was able to change my direction because someone believed that I was worth saving. It's not too late to change." A long tense silence followed, and he continued to stare expectantly into her burning eyes.

"_What's he saying! We're still talking about Oni, right? Why is he looking at me like that!?" _She forced a smooth, sly grin. "You know, Cutie, when your this close, a world threat seems a petty distraction." She leaned in for a kiss and waited for Mitarai to jump back, but he didn't. Her lips stopped just a couple centimeters from his mouth. "Damn you." She whispered. She eased back with a knot in her stomach and not a single clear thought in her mind. She smiled horribly in frustration.

Mitarai rested his head against his hand and sadly smiled. "You hate yourself too much. It's one thing if you're flirting with strangers, or playing with Kyo-kun. But any real risk . . . you hate yourself too much to let anyone near. I used hate myself too."

Mitarai finally looked away, and Graffiti breathed. She hadn't realized that she'd been holding her breath. _"Damn you. I am the last hope of my people, parasites or otherwise. You CAN"T beat me. I have too many debts. All my siblings . . ."_ She grabbed the back of his neck before he saw her move and held him like an iron vice._ "I can feel his crushed spine between my fingers already. Just like before. All that hot blood running freely over my hands!" _Graffiti's whole body shook as she watched the fear fill his eyes. "_Easy girl. Just a little easier." _She forced her mouth against his. Mitarai made a muffled sound of surprise and then was still and soft and warm. She broke the kiss slowly and did not look him in the face. "Damn your sympathy to hell." She brushed her lips against his cheek, and tightened her grip on the back of his neck.

Mitarai winced, but couldn't move from the neck down. "Graffiti . . .please . . .it . . ."

"HURTS!" She yelled furiously into his ear. "You think you know pain? YOU HAVE NO IDEA!"

"It's not too late." He finished in a trembling voice.

Graffiti didn't bother with a false smile. Her wide brown eyes were both cold and desperate. "It's not necessary for us to pretend to be your friends. Not if you lack the will to kill your enemies." She softly kissed his cheek goodbye and sank her fangs into his neck.

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An hour later, a beat-up sedan with stripped-off painted rattled to a halt at the steps of Genkai's temple. The last dented hubcap fell off and rolled away onto the sidewalk. A tall red-headed teen wearing dark glasses and denim sat in the driver's seat. He started a loud argument with a elementary schoolboy in the back seat. The child wore a neatly pressed blue and white school uniform with duck-tape covered sneakers. His matted multi-colored hair poked out from underneath a faded orange ballcap.

"Why do I have to do it? Why can't you do it?" The driver glared at the child in the backseat, and pointed accusingly to the tall, raven-haired girl sitting next to him.

The child stared obstinately out of the car window and smiled deviously as if plotting something horrible for that particular streetlight. Laying across the backseat was a sleeping blonde boy with his head in the child's lap. The schoolboy beamed at the irritated redhead and began stroking Mitarai's hair like it was a housecat. "So, which of us are you more jealous of right now, my red-hot baby?"

Kyo turned faintly green and gritted his teeth. "You know, my pretty Frankie, I remember you being more fun on your last visit."

She drank in Kyo's anger with a broad smile then shrugged it off. "You just don't like competition." She lightly ran her fingers over the gauze on Mitarai's neck. "My venom is a little low right now. So give the Doll a bite, and I'll send him on his way."

Kyo-kun glanced nervously at the tall cross-dresser in the passenger seat.

Hagari stared straight ahead as still and expressionless as an open-eyed corpse.

"Oh, I think he'll be fine as he is." Kyo-kun flashed a smile while his face went from pale green to blue. "I'm sure they've worked out how to reassemble the minds by now. Especially in the psychics, they can almost fix themselves. And he's such a biker-type. Who knows what exotic substances have been in his bloodstream? He'd probably give me horrible indigestion."

"Kyo-kun," Graffiti began with a "you idiot" look. "One shoot of our venom can suppress the thoughts of a healthy person." She gestured to Mitarai like a game show hostess displaying a prize. "Or it can help reconnect a dismantled mind as it liquifies mental energy into the blood. I want to be sure my little tour guide is going to fully recover. We don't want Koenma's champions to get lost."

Kyo looked at the biker-turned-beauty queen like he was slime-covered broccoli. "How about I don't and say I did?" Graffiti kicked the seat, and Kyo fell back onto the horn with a loud blaring honk. "Alright, alright, I was just kidding!" He rubbed the new bruise on his back and turned to face Hagari. _"He's not a corpse. It's all in my head." _He took a deep breath, and Graffiti kicked the seat again.

"What now?! AAAH!" A hideous face, framed in orange hair, pressed up against the driver's side window. It smiled broadly with huge square teeth, and Kyo jumped back onto Hagari's lap. Kyo now sat in the direct, vacant stare of Sniper and effectively froze like he was sitting on a landmine.

Graffiti shifted her hand to cover Mitarai's face and briefly muttered a twisted prayer. "Dear God or demons, whoever is available at this time, please make him as stupid as my research says he is. Amen." Then she put on her most innocent horrified look and spoke in a little boy's voice. "Oh my big sister! Mister! Help us! That pervert is at it again!"

Kyo's jaw dropped, and he looked over the seat at his pint-sized betrayer. Then the door behind him jerked open, and Kyo was dragged out by the collar of his denim jacket. An enormous orange-haired teen with a broad build and an ugly face held him a foot off the ground.

"I knew something was wrong with all that noise. What kind of man are you!" Kuwabara yelled into Kyo's face. "Taking advantage of a girl just because she's quiet and pretty!" In one fist, Kuwabara held Kyo off the ground. In the other, he held a couple bags of groceries.

Graffiti smiled wickedly. _"Monstrous face, but he certainly has the muscle doesn't he?" _Graffiti reminded herself that elementary school boys didn't ask for phone numbers or nude photos.She put on her innocent child face again. "Please don't hurt him, Mister. He's not bad, really. He's just not good around girls."

Kyo glared homicidally at the innocent-looking child in the backseat. _"What the hell are you making me into? I'm great around girls!"_

Graffiti blinked her large light brown eyes. "Please help my sister. She has some kind of spiritual illness. We can't get her to answer us. We heard of a fighting Master here that might be able to heal her."

Kuwabara scowled one last time at the sheepish red-haired monster and threw him hard onto the asphalt. Then he bent down to the tall, silent brunette in the passenger seat and grinned. "Hey there, are you alright pretty lady?"

Hagari stared straight through him. A chill went down the large boy's spine.

"You see!" Graffiti chimed in with a childish pout. "She won't answer any of us. It's like she's locked inside herself."

Kuwabara studied the lifeless expression. "Locked inside herself." He muttered. "This is same look those psychics had after we cut them out of the goo." He turned to talk to the wild-haired child and saw another boy laid out across the backseat. "Huh? Who's he?"

"Oh!" Graffiti smiled perfectly. "It's O.K. He had a fever yesterday, but it's gone down. The doctor just told him to sleep a lot, so SHHHHH!" She cutely laid a finger against her lips. "We don't want to wake him." Graffiti whispered.

"Oh, uh, right." Kuwabara softed his naturally big voice. "So can your sister, you know, bend spoons or hear people around the world or make weapons out her energy or anything like that?"

Graffiti crocked her head with feigned confusion. _"Oh good, he is that dumb."_

"Uh, Actually, nevermind." He waved his giant hands back and forth nervously. "Yeah, Forget I said that. So your sister needs to see Master Genkai?"

Mischief flickered in Graffiti's light brown eyes. "Yes please, can you carry her there? She won't respond if we ask her to walk. We all had to carry her to the car, but big brother is sleeping. And Kyon is being bad."

Kyo snarled at Graffiti through the window, but starting walking around to the driver's side. He wanted his foot on the gas pedal the second Graffiti was done messing with this simpleton.

"M-me! Carry her?" He blushed as he looked at the beautiful face and the graceful curves. "Yeah. I mean, if it's to help a girl in need then a real man's gotta do it." Kuwabara blushed bright red as he wrapped one arm around Hagari's stomach and looped the other arm under Hagari's knees. "Don't worry now, your big sister's got Kuwabara helping her! You go home and put your sick brother in bed." Kuwabara smiled at the worried-looking child and started toward the long stone stairway. "Wow, she's heavy for a girl." Then he winced and glanced down at the still, doll-like face. "Hope she doesn't remember I said that."

Graffiti snickered to herself as Kyo slid into the driver's seat, fastened his seatbelt, and peeled out. She started laughing like a horror-movie witch when the temple was a block behind them. "That's great! I wish I could be a fly on the wall when that wig comes off!"

"Well, why don't we write 'fly' on your arm and double back?" Kyo said with sincere hopes that Graffiti would get swatted. "You know that night at the beachside hotel? The night I said you were my best girl?" He stared evilly at her reflection in the rearview mirror. Graffiti started to pet Mitarai's hair again and smiled in Kyo's direction. "I LIED! You're not my best girl! You're not even in the top ten!" He screeched.

Graffiti laughed at that too.

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"Our enemy is certainly leaving nothing to chance." Kurama hid a laugh behind his hand as Kuwabara gently laid the tall, catatonic beauty on the bedroll.

"Unusual criminal minds. I can only guess what they must be planning next." A tall doctor in a white surgical coat looked over the flowing black hair, painted red lips, full bust and high-heel boots. His broad shoulders shook, and he couldn't keep sinister smirk off of his face. He deliberately turned away and concentrated on steadying his hands enough to filled the hypodermic needle. "Psychics already know how to manipulate their mind and energy. It should only take a few milligrams of Levodopa to reestablish the ruptured mental links." The doctor turned to face his lovely patient and started to chuckle.

"What's so funny?" Kuwabara stood between the doctor and his patient with tight fists at the ready. "You aren't wacko again are you? How do we know that gunk is really going help her? That it's not some weird bug poison like you did before?"

"It's alright, Kuwabara." Kurama chimed in with a knowing smile. "Doctor Kamiya has been helping us ever since we managed to revive him. He has no reason to sabotage this treatment."

"Tch." Kuwabara shot the half-demon a skeptical look, but didn't argue. He stood next to Doctor Kamiya as he injected the needle, as if watching somehow insured that it was right medicine.

"There." The doctor withdrew the empty needle. He spoke to the concerned Kuwabara in a professional yet highly amused manner. "By the energy I'm feeling, I'd say he was on the verge of breaking through on his own. It'll only be an hour or so." Kamiya patted the large, irritated boy on the shoulder. "You won't have to spend the night watching over him or anything like that."

Kuwabara stared at the chuckling doctor, and it finally clicked into place. "Wait. Did you say 'he'?"

Kurama started laughing.

"KYO!" Suddenly, Hagari was awake and violently shaking Kuwabara by the throat. "How are dare you do this to me! YOU'RE DEAD!" Then his dark eyes focused a bit better, and Kuwabara's blue, twitching mug became clear. "Rrrr! Not Kyo!" Hagari released his neck, and the large boy hit the floor with a thud. The newly-revived biker sat twitching like a wet cat. "Shooting is too good for him!" He ripped off the long wig and threw it against the wall. Then he tried to rub the red lipstick off with his hands, but it only smeared all over his jaw and hands.

"You certainly made a quick recovery." Doctor said pleasantly from well outside of Sniper's arm reach. "It's been a long time, Sniper. It seems that we'll be working together again. Only this time, it will be to save humanity." Kamiya smiled from the heart when he added that last phase.

Hagari shared a quiet look with Kamiya, and his anger cooled. "Yeah." He wiped the red mess off of his hands and onto the white turtleneck.

Meanwhile, Kurama knelt down next to the still twitching boy on the floor. "Not a girl . .Not a girl . . ." The teenage punk repeated to the ceiling.

"He'll be fine. It's mostly just the shock I think he was really starting to like you as a girl." Kurama smiled at Hagari, and Hagari drilled into him with a cold, hateful stare. "More importantly, you have information for us from our enemy." The fox continued gracefully.

"Yeah." The biker took off the red-stained shirt and exposed the heavily-padded white lace bra beneath it. Doctor Kamiya doubled over trying to hold in a laugh, but luckily Sniper didn't see him. He was using the formerly white shirt to rub the heavy makeup off of his face. "They're planning a war, and I'm here with your invitation to fight. I know all their names, the location of their lab and even the building's layout. However, I know because Graffiti wants me to tell you."

Hagari looked seriously at Kurama. Red lipstick was smeared up and down his face. Years of emotional control allowed the spirit fox to stay somber. "Who is Graffiti?"

"The leader of the rebels, and a complete nutcase." Hagari frowned at the floor. He remembered being sealed in the darkness. His arms tied into that strange black tissue, and his mind shattered. He looked at the deep cuts in his arms where Graffiti had dug out the puppetmaster's wires, and at Mitarai's small bite mark. "How long have I been at the temple? How big a lead do they have on me?"


	9. Anything You Want

Disclaimer: I do not own Yu Yu Hakusho. (Of course.)

Anything You Want

The air was still, cool and a little stale, but he could feel sunlight. Mitarai opened his eyes and looked out through the open blinds at a pure blue sky. He lifted his head off his desk, and groggily looked at the jumbled words of his notes that he'd been napping on._"What am I doing? I never sleep in . . ."_ He looked across the silent classroom at his sleeping classmates. They all had their heads down on their desks. They slept so quietly that they seemed to be a part of the furniture. The only motion came from the tiny teacher who vigorously drew birds on the blackboard. She wore duct tape wrapped up her legs like thigh-high boots with an oversized green tweed jacket over red hotpants. Her wild multi-colored hair was combed for once and tied into surprisingly thick braids that sprung from random points on her head. She wore pink-framed tinted glasses, black lipstick, and a matching black lace shirt. Mitarai sighed. _"So things aren't back to normal yet. I wonder if this is even really my school."_ He looked again across the classroom and in a flash his classmates were twisted on the floor, frozen in mid-scream. Then he blinked, and they were once again sleeping in neat rows. A faint smell of swampwater drifted through the air. _"That was too real." _He stood up to leave and noticed that his chair made no noise against the floor. Then, like a delayed reaction, there was a vibration of metal against linoleum. _"O.K. Not the real world. But a world that feels real."_

"Yeah! You're up! You're up!" Graffiti abandoned her drawings and ran to him with open arms. She wrapped her little arms around his waist with an impact that made Mitarai stumble back a step.

"_What is she doing? Even for Graffiti . . ." _Mitarai tensed, and nervously looked down at the suddenly affectionate psycho. He remembered the new bite marks on his neck. "Um, Graffiti, could you please . . ."

"You've been sleeping for a long time." Graffiti stepped back and smiled warmly without a trace of anger.

A deep pit opened in Mitarai's stomach as he stared at that pure, open smile. _"She's just lying again, right? Graffiti has never been able to fake a smile like that." _

A thick, colorful braid flopped over one wide eye when she cocked her head. "Is something wrong? Do you still not feel well? It has been a bad day, hasn't it?"

"Yeah." Mitarai stepped back a couple feet. _"This isn't the real Graffiti."_ He nervously crossed his arms, and his eyes darted around the perfectly still classroom. _"Of course, I can't trust the real Graffiti anyway, but is anyone here real?"_

"This place is dead isn't it?" Graffiti said like she had heard that thought. "Why don't we leave these worthless dregs? Teacher says that school is out today!" She waved her fist in the air and pivoted on her heels. She started goose-stepping toward the door. "Left, Right, Left, Right . . ."

Mitarai's slight shoulders slumped. _"Following Graffiti to who knows where for no known reason. Haven't I made this mistake enough yet?"_ The silence was smothering. "_It's like living in a photograph." _He followed her out into the hall and stopped just outside the classroom door. "Where are we? What is this place?"

The tiny girl spun around on her toes like a ballerina. "I can do anything! Because I am Graffiti! Fear me fool!" Graffiti stumbled dizzily as she tried to point an authoritative finger at Mitarai. She attempted a fierce grin, but it looked like a child imitating a pirate.

Mitarai stared blankly at the posing girl like an exhausted babysitter. "Sorry, but I've had enough weird games today." He turned his back on her and started walking toward the basement stairs. It seemed the best place to start looking for answers.

"No, No! Wait! You're not really a fool! I'm sorry! Please, are you angry?" The tiny girl sprinted up to him and desperately clung onto his school uniform sleeve.

Mitarai sighed. _"Definitely a fake."_ Then he noticed the blue of his sleeve. He was wearing his school uniform again without any burns or stains on it. _"But it was destroyed." _He put his free hand on his neck and felt neither gauze nor fang marks. _"So, it's been healed? Or . . . I'm not really here either." _He stopped walking and stared hard into Graffiti's face.

Graffiti cringed under the stare and hid her face behind his elbow. "Are you mad? Why are staring at me like that? Please don't."

"Oni." For a split second, Mitarai saw the white void with its writhing black sky. Then it was the hallway again with its neat rows of tan lockers.

Graffiti's jaw dropped. She looked at the floor and nervously rocked on back and forth on her feet for a moment. Then she sheepishly looked up at Mitarai again. "Oh, rats!" Graffiti's tiny body faded, and a boy only a few centimeters shorter solidified in her place. "It was perfect. I looked just like her! What gave me away?!" He protested with his lower lip sticking out. His skin was an unnatural ashy white. His eyes were pitch black, as was his straight, short hair. The veins beneath his thin, pale skin seemed to be black as well. His protruding lower lip was the color of charcoal. He wore a plain, baggy white T-shirt, tan cargo pants and white sneakers.

"So it is you! Am I trapped in your territory again?" Mitarai looked around at the perfectly clean hallway that smelled faintly of new paint and swampwater. "You've never done an illusion like this before. Why were you pretending to be Graffiti?"

Oni hid a laugh behind his pale hand. "Little sister's the strongest, next to me, of course. I just thought it would be fun to be Little L for a while. She acts so crazy, you know." He smiled broadly and warmly, but the inside of his mouth was black.

Oni's unnatural white-and-black smiling face reminded Mitarai of a zombie he saw in a video game. "What are you? Both of you?"

"Hmm?" Oni cocked his head again. "Oh! I'm the big brother!" He pointed to himself proudly. "I was made to be 7, and Little L was made to be 11. It's been a few years, and we're growing awfully slow. However," He raised his voice to let Mitarai know that this was the important part. "I'm really 6 months older! No matter how bossy she is, I'm the big brother."

"_What is he saying?"_ Mitarai shook his head. "No, Oni. Are you two human?"

"Ooooh, That's long answer. You sure do ask a lot of questions." He sat down on the floor, grabbed his ankles and started to rock back and forth. A red stripe abruptly appeared across his white shirt."Sister hasn't told you much, has she? Very well then, but first I want ice cream. It's now time to eat!" The off-color child nodded his head sagely at this decision.

"_So the overeating is genetic, is it?" _Mitarai groaned. "All right. If you tell me what's going on, you can eat anything you want."

"Okay!" Oni jumped back to his feet which now boasted bright red sneakers. "Take us to ice cream! Where's the best store?"

"_He's asking me that? I don't even know if this illusion extends outside of the school."_ The teen stared at the tan lockers on the opposite wall and could only think of an ice cream store on the far side of town. Then Mitarai blinked, and the wall was pale blue between two large storefront windows. He looked around and saw people eating ice cream and chatting at the tables scattered across the store's white tile floor. The chatter was only meaningless noises that contained no real words, and nobody had eyes. It was just plain, smooth skin from their eyebrows to their chins. On the walls were framed pictures of foreign beaches, and dressed all in white was an eyeless clerk sweeping behind the counter. The letters on the menu behind him were an impossible jumble, and the picture displayed mint chocolate chip as the flavor of the month. _"It's the store I was thinking of, or rather, it's imitation."_

Oni was tilting over sideways staring at Mitarai like a painting that was hung upside down. "You look weird."

Mitarai looked at his faint reflection in the store front window and was relieved to see eyes, brown eyes. His hair was black and straightened, and he wore the same worn jeans and striped shirt that Kyo had lent to him. There was a gauze patch on his neck that he vaguely remembered Graffiti applying.The sounds in the store switched to a soft girl's voice spiked with random patches of fury. It echoed everywhere like it was being played over a loudspeaker, but the words were too distorted to understand.

"Is that sister's voice? What's she saying?" Oni looked excitedly at Mitarai for an answer, but the teen only stared at his reflection.

"You know, it does look weird." Mitarai narrowed his eyes at his reflection, and it changed. His hair went back to neat, wavy blonde with only a couple locks hanging down across his forehead. He wore a yellow, long-sleeved shirt with a hood pulled up over his head and blue jeans. "I'm in my own mind, aren't I? My classmates are forever asleep, because I wanted them to leave me alone. The people here have no eyes because I don't want them to look at me." He scowled at his own reflection like it betrayed him. "I thought I was through running away, but some part of me must still be afraid."

Oni shrugged. "That's normal. Everyone is afraid of what's hurt them before." He spun around and goose-stepped up to the ice cream counter. "If you're done scowling at yourself, I'm ready to order. Since we're in your world, I bet we have to pay. I don't even bother with the store anymore. When I eat ice cream, it's on the back of a whale with the northern lights above me. Of course, I've never seen whales or northern lights or even tasted ice cream. But I know all of it from the memories I've stripped out of other people's heads. I can assemble my own perfect world from the bits and pieces of other people's lives. It doesn't really matter that I've never been outside myself." Oni's happy tone dragged with this last sentence. "Is it really that different in the real world?"

Mitarai looked away and put his hands in his pockets. He found his old switch blade in the right one and took his hands back out. "This place isn't alive. It just . . . feels like an illusion. I can't really describe it."

"So it is different." Oni let his head fall against the glass of the ice cream case, and stared down at his favorite flavor. "Hmph." Oni started to smile again. "It doesn't matter. I'm who I am, where I am, right now. That's all I'll ever have." He beamed at the eyeless ice cream server. "I'll have three Bubblegum, two Chocolate, and just one Butter Pecan. He happily waved at Mitarai. "Don't you want any? It still tastes good if you think it does."

". . . Yeah, alright." The thin blonde walked over and stared at the eyeless server who politely smiled back. He focused his attention on the deformed face and two squinted eyes appeared. It reminded Mitarai of Gourmet, and suddenly, the whole server became Gourmet.

"Ya want something, kid?" The huge server said through his thick lips.

Mitarai remembered him swallowing the mind-reader whole. The store warped into a dark, brick-wall alley. Again, Sea Man just stood in the alley and watched mortal terror spread over the other boy's face. The mind-reader already knew what Gourmet planned to do, but he couldn't run. Mitarai's water golem blocked the alley's mouth. _"It's all for Sensui's plan. This is justified. They'll all be dead soon anyway! They deserve to die!" _

Gourmet's throat expanded as his jaw unhinged. The boxer's screams were muffled by the huge man's flesh.

"What is this?! I just wanted ice cream! Take it away!" Oni covered his face with his hands. Then the alley was gone, and they were back in the ice cream shop. Oni started to sniffle. "Why'd you do that? You can see anything you want here. Why did want to see that?"

Mitarai opened his mouth to explain, but couldn't put the reason into words. "I'm sorry." He finally said. "I just remembered something, that's all." He nervously looked at Gourmet who stood ready with an ice cream scoop behind the counter. _"Well, I guess he's a food expert, and I'm just eating the illusion of my choice . . ." _He pointed to the flavor in front of him.

"Give you a tip, kid?" The server Gourmet opened one narrow eye.

"Um, sure." Mitarai stared at him with his hand still pointing toward vanilla.

"Don't trust anyone." Gourmet said with Toguro's voice, and then the top of his head became a tree that grew up into the false ceiling. All around them echoed the high-pitch squealingof the elder Toguro's laughter.

Mitarai shook As his eyes grew wider, the room started to darken.

"Why is he a tree?" Oni glanced at the trembling teen. Then the puppetmaster took hold of Mitarai's still-pointing hand. "You'll get used to it. Just remember, your thoughts are real here." His childish grin was wide and charcoal black. He climbed up over the white counter. "I'll just help myself. Keep the lights bright. I don't like the dark."

The store lights returned to their original florescent brightness. Mitarai sat down on the floor and held his head in his hands. "Why am I here?"

"Little L brought you here." Oni hoisted a steel mixing bowl onto the counter to use as his ice cream dish. He looked skeptically at the ice cream scoop in the increasing tree-like Gourmet's hand.

"After she bit me . . ." Mitarai remembered Graffiti's fangs sinking into his neck, and a white-hot static rushing into his mind. The shop flickered, and Mitarai quickly forced himself to think of ice cream. _"Whew, that was close. I wonder what happens if I pass out in here? But how do I talk about it, without thinking about it?" _He put his hand on his neck and found that the gauze had reappeared.

"Did she really bite you? I want to see!" Oni got on his toes to look over the counter, but all the small boy could see was the top of Sea Man's yellow hood. "Come on! I want to see the bite mark."

"It's really nothing to look at." Mitarai pulled the side of his hood further over his neck. "Where am I, physically?"

Oni whined with disapointment. "Your body is at Trans Labs in the second Dream Machine that Doctor Stine and Kyo put together. Your conscious mind is now a part of the machine, and is helping me maintain the really big territory that Doctor Stine ordered. With your waking mind reduced to a machine part, your self, as you know yourself, retreats into your unconscious mind where all your dreams come from. But, don't worry. The longer you're in here, the easier to gets to flow out into the void and see other people's minds. That's how I'm here. I'm visiting." Oni triumphantly smiled and held up a red ice cream scoop from a drawer under the counter. "Make sense?"He eagerly dug the red ice cream scoop into the Butter Pecan.

Mitarai stared straight ahead at the white wood in front of him "I'm . . . I'm helping you . . . the huge territory, the void with all those twisted, broken minds and souls. I'm helping you expand that horror right now!" Mitarai got to his feet, and gave the mutant child a purely psychotic look.

"Eeep!" A scoop of Chocolate whacked the menu sign and splattered. Oni ducked behind the counter. "Why?! What's wrong?! You don't have to do anything! I'll do all the work. It's . . .it's just like adding another motherboard into a computer. Daddy only wanted you to increase the capacity!"

Mitarai swung his legs over the counter and stood before Oni with Sea Man's crazy, wide eyes. "Let me out now! I am NOT part of your plot to destroy the world! I DON'T WANT ANYTHING TO DO WITH IT!"

Oni balled up and covered his head with his arms like he was expecting a blow. "NO! I didn't do it! It's O.K. It's O.K!"

"No, Oni, it's not O.K! You trap people, rip them into pieces and hang them from the ceiling! IT"S NOT O.K!" Mitarai screamed. Then they were on the void. The black living sky above moaned and cried out from thousands of twisted throats. A high wind from an unseen maelstrom tore across the normally still white floor.

Oni started to cry. Black wires appeared puncturing his arms and chest through his shirt. "I-I . . .Doesn't . . .It's O.K. They're not real. None of them are real people!" Oni's small chest shook with sobs, and black tears rolled down his young cheeks. "None of them . . .they're all fake. All worthless and selfish . . . And, and . . ." He gasped for breath and sobbed. "The real world is all fake people. Little L, she tells me . . ." Oni pressed his ash-white hands over his ears and started to shake violently. "Shut them up! They're not real people! They're mean and worthless, and they shouldn't be making noise!"

"_Graffiti . . .so you'll even brainwash your own brother. But why?"_ Sea Man concentrated on taking deep, slow breaths until his heartbeat stopped pounding against his ribs. "Ice cream, ice cream, ice cream . . ." He chanted with his eyes squeezed shut. When he opened them again, they were back in the ice cream shop.

IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII

"Now that we have our second Oni, we won't have to worry about exhausting our ki during a fight. It also could solve our food problem." A young man in his early twenties jotted notes down into a navy binder. He wore a white lab coat with khakis and an ice blue collar shirt. He had a long face with droopy gray eyes, and his white shoulder-length hair was blue at the tips. The room around him was poorly lit and piled with cardboard boxes and spare furniture.

"Does it really matter, Max?" A tall red-haired teen brushed back his bangs in a stylish flourish and lazily stretched out on a dusty, brown sofa. "Frankie's set it up so we won't have to lift a finger. All of those robot-brained third-generation reanimates will be exterminated by our "unexpected" guests."

"That will not be the end. We will fight." A tall girl with black hair flowing down to her waist stood arrow straight by a steel door. Her face was smooth, stunning and complete void of all emotion. Only the droop of her eyelids betrayed that she might feel a bit bored. She wore fitting black jeans with a retractable blade strapped to her left arm and three watches on her right. Her large breasts were held tight in a black corset-like top with a low scooped neck and laces stitching up the front.

"Of course, my lovely Still-chan." Max gave her a playful wink that was completely ignored. "As a matter of fact, our long anticipated guests are approaching the front gate now. Your fight is close at hand." He snapped his notebook shut and cocked an ear toward the back of the storage room. "Kyon, I do believe the guide we sent wants a word with you over a disguise? Something about a skirt?"

Kyo smiled and crossed his arms behind his head. "Ah yes, he did look gorgeous. Frankie's got a picture of it, if you want to see."

"No, thank you." Max held up his hand in a "stop there" gesture.

Still walked out through the steel door. Inside a schoolboy with wild multi-colored hair sat on the concrete floor staring up at a metal pod with a small window. Countless cables, tubes and wires attached to the coffin-like pod until the wall behind looked like a mass of metal snakes. An old generator crackled against the brown, stained wall. "Commander, they're here."

The schoolboy got to his feet and dusted off his blue shorts. "Daddy will send out the thirds, of course. Regardless, Koenma's fighters must stop Oni, or the territory will never collapse. I'm confident they will defeat the third generation.We bide our time, and betray our sadistic maker after his defense is shattered. Are the second generation ready to fight for our freedom?"

Still's chest and jaw lifted slightly with pride. "In the end, all the second generation has joined our revolution."

"Then break out the good china, my Second." The child flashed a furious grin and both eyeteeth hung over her small, stretched bottom lip. She pointed at Still like a disco queen. "Our time has finally come!" Graffiti then skipped out of the dark, mechanized room like the schoolboy she appeared to be.

Still shut the door behind her with a clank. The quiet crackling of the old generator was the only sound in the windowless, dark room. A small, slim figure slipped out from behind the metal pod. The dark, tiny silhouette lightly ran her fingertips over the machine's window glass and leaned against the cold metal door with her bare skin. "You're so much trouble, sweet Mitarai-kun." She looked in through the small window with a wide, wicked smirk. "Now I have to go find a change of clothes. Even I can't lead a revolution completely naked. It distracts people."


	10. The Third Generation

I'm trying to update once a week. I write slowly and rewrite, so I'm afraid that's top speed. Mitarai and Graffiti don't show up in this chapter. I'm not sure that was a good idea, but I think it has to proceed this way for the plot. It'll be funnier later. Oh, I'm not trying to set up Kuwabara and Hagari. They hate each other. Finally, (This is a long author's note for me.) I went to a writing workshop at a local library. I've posted the Common Mistakes on my profile (underneath the part about stories). She had some really good tips.

Disclaimer: I not own Yu Yu Hakusho. Current list of O.C.: Graffiti, Doctor Stine, Kyo, Max, Still, and a swarm of mutant monsters.

The 3rd Generation

The dilapidated factory rose out of a field of high weeds and junk piles. Most of its opaque square windows were broken, and the roof was orange with rust. A faded gray sign proclaimed "Trans Rock Quarry" with all of the 'Quarry' covered with rusty streaks. Even the gate was rusted, and it hung off of its hinges from the vine-covered concrete wall.

"You're kidding right? This dump is a secret lab? It'll fall down if we blow on it." The huge red-headed teen crossed his arms and scoffed. He wore a plain white T-shirt and new blue jeans. "You brought us to the wrong place didn't you, transvestite?"

"I told you that was not my idea, you idiot!" The dark-haired biker was kneeling on the weed-eaten gravel road. He collected small, sharp rocks into his jacket pockets. Hagari's T-shirt and jeans were baggy because he borrowed clothes from that 'idiot'.

"Who are you calling an idiot? Mr-Gets-Himself-Captured-And-Turned-Into-A-Dolly? Or should I say Miss, since you wear a skirt for a disguise?" Kuwabara fluttered his eyelids and waved his huge hands in prissy circles. "Look at me I'm Sniper! I wear heels and a mini-skirt, Tee-hee!"

"I'm going to kill that Kyo!" Hagari's eyes narrowed dangerously. "But first . . ." He snatched up a handful gravel and glared murderously at Kuwabara.

"Sniper!" Doctor suddenly chimed in. "Now is a bad time to be killing your allies. There's only five of us, already." The man's pressed clean shirt, navy slacks and white lab coat stood out against the deep, isolated woods and winding gravel road.

"Yeah, you couldn't beat me anyway, punk." Kuwabara stuck out his tongue and pulled up his already upturned nose.

Hagari coldly glared at the ugly face, and pushed the fistful of rocks into his pocket. _"He's not worth it."_ The biker looked over his shoulder and addressed the intelligent party members. "There's a manhole just outside the factory door. It leads into the underground laboratories."

"Is this really alright? To just walk in when our enemy knows who we are, and when we will be coming?" A tall teenager with short brown hair, long blue robes and a 'Jr.' printed on his forehead stood to the back of the mismatched group. "I know they went to a lot of trouble to get our attention, but these energy cannibals seem mentally unstable."

"We don't have time to create an alternate plan." A graceful auburn-haired boy slipped into the high weeds without breaking a stalk or blade. Kurama's green shirt and brown slacks seemed to fade into the plants as he waded through the tall weeds. "The territory's power has increased at an incredible rate within the last hour. The next time the black mist surfaces, it could swallow a small city. Besides, I don't believe our hosts would have given us so much information to kill us at the front door." He said without looking back.

Doctor Kamiya followed him without hesitation.

Hagari and Kuwabara were staring each other down like punks from rival gangs.

Koenma broke the stare by boldly standing between them. "Come on, you two. Your opponents for today are inside."

"_The second underground lair I've entered in the last month."_ Kurama looked down into the bottomless concrete pit that was beneath the rusted manhole cover. The metal ladder rungs that looped out of the concrete were free of rust and polished down the middle from frequent climbing. _"Once again, our enemy has arranged for a guide." _Kurama looked over as Hagari climbed into the manhole and started down. _"Also, a member of our team has been captured to further our enemy's plan. Is it too much for coincidence?" _

It was twenty minutes of steady descent until the manhole shaft opened into a square concrete hallway. A slight breeze blew from the vents cut into the thick concrete walls, and bare yellow lightbulbs hung from the ceiling

"_No bends or doorways." _Kurama looked down the straight, simple hallway.

The narrow, concrete passage opened into a vast room. Concrete pillars rose like old treetrunks into a gothic arched ceiling. The empty room had three doorways, two on the left and one directly ahead.

"My sixth sense tells me that we go straight here." Kuwabara pointed to the arch ahead, and something moved in the shadows.

"No Trespassing!" The high concrete walls echoed from every side. A teenager with ashy white skin and vacant black eyes stepped out of the dark doorway. His short, messy hair and open mouth were also black. His eyes were open in the intruder's general direction, and he plodded toward them with rhythmic, jerky steps. He wore cheap, gray sweat pants, without a shirt or shoes.

"Who are you? Name yourself." Kurama demanded.

His jaw dropped open.

"EEEEROOUGHHHHEEEEE!" The strange boy screeched like nails over a chalkboard.

Kuwabara covered his ears and winced. "Geez pal, Your mother name you that?"

"There's no point talking to it." Sniper reached into his pocket and pulled out a handful of sharp pebbles. "This thing is a third." A stone started to glow on his palm.

"Hey! Wait a minute!" Kuwabara reached for Sniper's arm, but the shot was fired.

The 'bullet' skimmed the boy's temple and struck something in the dark tunnel behind him with a sickening thud. A teenage boy with ashy-white skin, dark hair and empty eyes fell from the shadowed arch and hit the concrete floor. Black blood ran from a hole between his eyes. His face and body were an exact copy of the first boy who continued to plod towards them.

"No Trespassing!" An unseen, synchronized chorus rang from the dark tunnels. Steady, heavy footfalls of dozens of bare feet echoed off the walls like standing inside of a giant drum. Six more teenage boys exactly like the first emerged from the darkness.

The third generation reanimates that came out of the two tunnels to the left were far more grotesque. Their skins, arms and legs were mismatched in color and size. Their faces were criss-crossed with large stitches, and their vacant eyes bulged with pain. They lumbered towards their prey as if every uneven step was agonizing.

"Oh, Yuck! I think I've seen this movie, but it smells worse in person." Kuwabara pinched his nose and continued in nasal voice. "This Doctor Stine's a real wack job. Why even make something this gross?"

"Numbers." Hagari took aim at a withered throat stitched unto a half-exposed jawbone. The stone ripped through the thin skin like rice paper, and struck the hot-pink bald head behind it. Both men sank to the floor without a sound. Their blood ran yellow. "Am I fighting them by myself? I didn't bring that many rocks."

Kurama's rose whip sliced through another three experiments. "We can't waste time here. These pitiful animals are not humans, even if they were given human faces." He dashed off to get distance from his allies. Then he twirled his thorned whip in a broad circle through the grotesque army.

"Alright! Just like killing zombies at the arcade! Only smellier." Kuwabara's spirit sword flared up in his fist, and he charged into the nearest mob swinging his sword.

Kamiya paused and shook his head. The edge of his straightened hand glowed blue. _"A real tragedy. Doctor Stine must be a genius, and this is the work that he's chosen." _Every type of experiment Doctor could imagine, and many he never dreamed of, walked dumbly into the weapons of his allies. Doctor Kamiya forced himself to refocus and decided to clear a path the exit.

Koenma's cool eyes narrowed with contempt. He leaned up against the nearest column and watched his fighters dispose of the monsters.The deformed masses swarmed from the tunnels. Not one of them had an intelligent, or even, a self-aware facial expression._"If all of Stine's creations are this defiled, then it was a waste of my time to come."_

After several minutes of mutant clean-up duty, Kuwabara started to complain. "Aw, Come on! There's no end to these things!" He wrenched a hairy something off his arm and beheaded it. Two more clung to his shirt with thick, greasy hands. "Back off!" He kicked them into the throng, and a skeletal head went flying.

It smacked the back of a four-legged boy that crawled towards Hagari's leg. He looked down and crushed its ill-made head under his heel. Sniper quickly scooped the bloody teeth off of the ground and hardened them into bullets. "Should have brought more rocks." He said through his teeth. He elbowed the gangly green female that reached around him from behind, and fired four shots at point blank range. Then he shot the gangly woman though her already empty eye socket. She screeched and fell backwards onto still more disastrous experiments. Hagari swore. "Fine!" Hagari grabbed a warped arm, and he twisted until the elbow snapped.

Kurama's rose whip sliced through a column. The falling concrete ceiling crushed twenty monsters and sealed off one of the side tunnels. Kurama spiraled his whip around him like a dancer, and the floor was wet with a brown mix of blood. Not one experiment got within ten feet of the fox without decapitation.

Doctor stayed far away from the Yohko's twirling lash. _"He'll kill half all by himself." _He methodically sliced his way through the hoard with precise strikes, frequently along the large stitches. Unlike Kuwabara, Kamiya could see the end of the fight. No more monsters were emerging from the two remaining doorways. He sliced the aorta of an eight-foot woman with long, white hair. Hot water sprayed out instead of blood and steam rose from her mouth in place of a scream. Doctor couldn't help but stare. "Now, how did he do that?"

"Yeah! We got 'em, now!" Kuwabara cheered.

"Yeah." Koenma cheered in a monotone and off-clapped. "Any day now. We do have the world to save."

"Don't act all high and mighty while someone else fights your battles for you!" Kuwabara cut down another enemy, and suddenly, he had an idea. "Oh yeah! I should have done this earlier! Sword get long!" His spirit sword extended another twenty feet and skewered several monsters. Then the huge boy shifted all his weight onto his back foot and swung the extended energy blade through the deformed mob.

"Hagari-san! GET DOWN!" Koenma screamed.

Hagari saw the bright blade swinging towards him from behind. He ducked just before it severed his head. All the monsters around him collapsed into a bloody pile.

"Oh! Woah! My bad! I forgot you were over there. Maybe that's why I didn't do that before?" The dumb carrot-top scratched his head. He tried to remember what he was thinking fifteen minutes ago.

Hagari picked up a loose fang. He quickly spun around and aimed it at the punk's head.

"Hey! I said I was sorry!" Kuwabara waved his hands for Hagari to calm down. Unconsciously, he waved his spirit sword back and forth in front of his head as part of the gesture.

Sniper scowled and put the fang into his pocket for later. "Not much of a fight. Other than the friendly fire."

"No Trespassers." Kurama repeated the monsters' message. He calmed picked his way across the bloody floor strewn with disfigured corpses. "This was only the security system for anyone who looked beneath the rock quarry's surface. We can expect even more of these unnatural animals further inside. Our real enemies are waiting there as well."

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"_Is that a defect? That only one is right-handed?"_ The elegant, yellow-eyed demon curled a finger against his chin and quietly considered the peculiar boy. A thin scar ran across his eye, down his cheek, and onto his chest before vanishing beneath a deep red shirt. He wore a second, light blue shirt over the red, and his matching blue pants were tied by a green sash. He stood apart from the rows of identical lab assistants in their bleach-white coats. Their long desk was pushed beneath a wall of surveillance monitors, and files were stacked between their computers.

The third generation reanimates worked frantically. Their small arms were a blur of motion and every soulless young face was a copy of Stine's oldest living experiment. All of them had ashy white skin with black hair, black eyes, black tongues and black blood. The living puppets wore white lab coats, cheap sweatsuits and identical permanent smiles.

The calm demon turned his gaze to the security monitors. Koenma's champions were leaving the bloody foyer. Another, stronger batch of thirds awaited them in the next large room. However, in this time of crisis, he didn't see a single second generation anywhere on surveillance. _"Miss Stine is also absent." _His yellow eyes narrowed with a soft, unpleasant gleam. _"The politics of Trans Labs does not interest me. However, I can't allow Doctor Stine to fall just yet." _He glanced down at the mumbling old man next to him.

The agitated old man pulled at his frazzled gray hair and drank a long swallow of German beer. His shirt, pants and lab coat had been cleaned and pressed by his identical assistants, but his inside-out tan shirt was now stained with brown beer. He began to mutter under his breath. "You see, you see, Lenore . . . They're not necessary. I need . . . I need parts to work with. Sakyou-san won't wait! I must remake them!" He rocked back and forth in his office chair and forced his mouth into a crazed smile. "NO! My Oni, my perfect, my flawed, my unrepeatable experiment, Why?, Why can't I get it! If I can make one puppetmaster . . .Why are all of the others useless? USELESS!" He threw the bear bottle at a third's head, and it shattered . Black blood ran down the boy's neck, but his quick hands never stopped. "Useless." He smiled cruelly at his own creation. Hate burned in his eyes. "Why only Oni? Why can't I get it?!"

Itsuki frowned in annoyance. _"So Doctor Stine is having one his bad days. What poor timing."_

"No, it doesn't matter. Lenore brought me another puppetmaster! She's coming back to me! I WON"T BE STOPPED! I CAN"T BE STOPPED!" Doctor Stine crumpled up against his knees and started to either laugh or cry. Itsuki wasn't sure which, and little cared.

The demon returned to watching the right-handed reanimate, but the boy never paused or glanced back. Then a girl with matted, multi-colored hair pranced across a security monitor screen wearing a garish circus costume. _"There's Miss Stine. Is she really passing up this opportunity?"_

The demon glanced again at his sobbing confederate and turned away in revulsion. "I'm going to check on our main project." The green-haired demon passed through the heavy steel door behind Doctor Stine's chair.


	11. Head Trip

Hello, and sorry for the delay. If I announce a schedule again, please ignore it. I wrote Chapter 11, and then realized it was Chapter 12. Two chapters will go up this time. The next few chapters are going to be difficult, so it probably will be a while. Then I will post two or three at once. The longer this story gets, the more difficult it is to write.

I do not own Yu Yu Hakusho. (And I do paraphrase a few times in this.)

Head Trip

The customers in the ice cream shop faded into the air, and the windows solidified into walls. The tree behind the counter shrank into a wooden doll that began to stack dirty dishes into a steel sink. Mitarai stared straight ahead with wide unfocused eyes. His thoughts ran too fast to form a sentence. "Sensui-san"

A humanoid scaffold of wooden rods and leather straps shook and knocked as it worked over a hot stove. The scarecrow's forearms were covered in long, flowing blonde hair, but its head was a round wooden ball with no face. It wore a blue tent that hung by two strings wrapped several times around its thin neck, and a frilly white apron.

The last of the blue faded off the walls, and the room was striped with beige and mustard yellow wallpaper. Mitarai looked up at the perfect replica of his kitchen like he had landed on Mars. "I didn't think this. Did you do this?"

"Your world." Oni kicked his feet under the kitchen table and looked expectantly at the creature bent over the stove."So are we eating again? What are we having?"

"Tilipia." The scarecrow answered in a soft, pleasant voice.

"Oh, that sounds good. Thank you for having me." The child nodded politely in the scarecrow's direction. Then he whispered to Mitarai. "Is that your Mom?"

The blonde teenager shook his head in resignation. "It's wearing her apron."

"ONI!"It was more of a thunderclap than a word.

Mitarai jumped, and looked around for the speaker.

"Return! Return now! They're all against me! I hate them! I HATE EVERYONE! Lenore! Why won't she return to me?! Is it you?! IS IT YOUR FAULT?!" The psychotic voice rattled the family snapshots on the walls. Then the vibration abruptly stopped like a mike was cut off.

"I'm sorry. I have to go now. Father is calling me." Oni slid off the chair with a sulky expression. "It was nice visiting you. Remember that I'm your friend now. I won't leave you alone in the Dream Machine. Promise!" Oni leaned in towards Mitarai's ear, and the teenager automatically jerked away.

"It's O.K. I don't even have fangs. I think the doctor's gone but . . .I don't want him to hear." Oni whispered into Mitarai's ear. "Little L will get rid of father. Then it will all be O.K., and remember, think positive!" With a warm, black smile and a wave good-bye, the boy vanished.

Mitarai stared for a moment at where the puppetmaster had stood. His blue eyes wandered to the scarecrow making dinner, and he considered everything that Oni had told him over ice cream. _"Since the reanimates need Oni's territory to survive, they will never allow it to shut down. It will continue to drain innocent people, but in the past, energy was just skimmed off of the humans over a vast area. Since Itsuki-san arrived, the territory cannot be large enough or collect energy fast enough. I can guess the major, secret project they're working on together." _Mitarai sighed and forced his mind to clear. He deliberately changed his train of thought. _"So Graffiti's ultimate goal is to kill her father. Does Oni understand that?"_

"Mom!" A girl's voice called from the hallway, and a shiver went down Mitarai's spine. "Isn't dinner ready yet? It's fish. Just make sushi and call it done." A tiny girl with matted multi-colored hair strutted into the room. She stuck her tongue out in Mitarai's direction, and her fangs were normal, rounded eyeteeth. Her school uniform was clean, pressed and the correct size, but she still wore her duct tape covered sneakers. Graffiti peered over the scarecrow's hairy arms at the unprepared food.

"Can I have that?" She pointed to a carrot.

"No, Graffiti. Dinner is almost ready." The wooden mother said patiently.

"How about that one?" Graffiti pointed to pepper.

"No, Dear. Go sit with your brother. Your father will be home tonight, so I want you to behave." The scarecrow's many-pegged hand closed around the vegetables, and moved them out of the tiny girl's reach.

"You know, you seriously don't have to cook that." Graffiti smiled wickedly as the scarecrow leaned over her.

"Go-sit-down." The wooden woman annunciated clearly despite having no mouth.

"You sure? I think we should do a bounding thing and cook together. Happy memories of your little angel." Graffiti struck a cutsie, pigeon-toed pose and smiled sadistically. "Something to forget when you're alone and senile."

The scarecrow pointed a wooden finger firmly toward the table. "NOW! YOUNG LADY!"

Graffiti stuck out her lower lip, and her eyes watered. "She yelled at me!" She sniffed loudly and stomped towards Oni's empty chair. "I-I'm traumatized. I can never work or live independently now. I'm doomed to live at home forever!"

The scarecrow mother flinched and dropped a dish. It shattered on the floor.

"Uh-oh, Can't have that kind of sloppiness." Graffiti instantly snapped out of fake self-pity. "Dad's coming home tonight. It'll be your only chance this month to make a good impression." She smirked and wagged a finger at the furious scarecrow. "Sloppy. Sloppy. Tsk, tsk."

The scarecrow shook with repressed fury. The wooden hands snatched up the broken plate and slammed it into the sink."Where did she come from? It's nothing on my side of the family!"

Graffiti slid gracefully into her seat with a smug grin. "So Kiyoshi, are you really this bland? This is your world. You could eat dinner at home any night. At least make the food more interesting. How about camel?" Her eyes gleamed and her practiced smile assumed its usual place.

"_After all that arguing over names, now she just starts calling me by my first . . " _Mitarai blinked. "You know this is fake?! Are you the real Graffiti?"

"Is the real Graffiti your sister?" She crossed her feet on the kitchen table and leaned back in her chair. "It's an interesting casting choice on your part. We're very close, but we can't be lovers without incest."

Reality flickered, and Mitarai almost fell out of his chair trying to lean further away. "N-no! I mean . . . I don't see you . . . but you're just in my head away, and . . .Sorry?"

"A rejection? Who said that was an invitation?" The little mess placed her right hand over her heart dramatically, while she flicked him off with her left hand. "If you said that to the real Graffiti, she could become violent. After all, she won't need you once Oni is freed." The tiny girl's brown eyes seemed to glow yellow in the well-lit kitchen. Her practiced smile stretched further up her cheeks than humanly possible. "What will Miss Monster do when she's finished with you, little boy?" The walls creaked and warped. Gravity started to shift toward the little monster's open smile and suddenly sharp teeth

She lazily extended one arm. When she closed her hand, a boy's neck appeared in her small, iron grip. It was a boy from Mitarai's class. His face was turning purple beneath his badly-trim bangs. His uniform was worn, and blood ran from Graffiti's finger-sized punctures in his neck. "Want to see a human voicebox? Or maybe a spine?" She playfully winked one yellow eye, and closed her hand a little tighter.

"No! Please don't!"

Her eyes flashed bright yellow. "Why should I?" Her face levitated off of her head, attached by melted strings of skin. The smiling mouth of jagged teeth floated free into the air towards the shaking Mitarai. "Why am I here, brother?"

She ripped out the voicebox, and blood sprayed across the kitchen table.

Mitarai threw his arms over his head, and thought hard of his plain, mustard and beige striped kitchen. His older sister was off at college. Both he and his mother would glance at her empty chair while they ate across from each other at the table. The clock on the wall evenly ticked the minutes away. Only a few sentences about his sister or the weather would pass between them. Then Mitarai heard a plate clink on the table in front of him, and he dared to crack one eye open.

Graffiti aggressively ate with her bare hands. She glanced up from her meal with her cheeks stuffed full and rounded. "Mph r uph fumkin?" She pointed to the pepper, and Mitarai nervously passed it into her sticky hand.

The scarecrow sitting across from Mitarai sighed and picked at her rice with disinterest. "Father will have to work late after all. He'll be in around twelve. I'm sorry if I got your hopes up."A noisy clock appeared on the wall behind her.

"Oh, That's alright. I understand." Mitarai smiled with relief. _"Hopefully this world has stabilized again. Somehow, it feels even more unreal without Oni."_ Then he noticed a huge black doberman sleeping in the kitchen corner. _"Where did that come from? We've never owned a dog."_

Graffiti snatched a fistful of fish off of Mitarai's plate while he was distracted. He moved it out of her reach. He glanced down at this dinner, and it flickered. For a split second, it was the severed head of his classmate. Mitarai silently placed the plate to the side with a knot twisting in his stomach.

"You're a good child, Kiyoshi. You always understand." The scarecrow twitched as Graffiti bit into her plate. Her sharp teeth screeched against the porcelain.

"Crunchy." Graffiti licked her thin lips, and took another bite. Her mother and brother cringed in anticipation, but this time, there was no sound.

The scarecrow sighed, and fair skin was suddenly stretched taunt across the wooden frame. "I have such a savage third child. We've given you everything. What is wrong with you?!"

Graffiti flicked her off with a food-encrusted finger.

There was no facial expression to read, but Mitarai could sense a quiet rage. Rice disappeared into the round skin-coated head. "And I wanted a son, too."

"What?" Mitarai looked at her with a perplexed expression.

"Oh, not that I don't love you," She quickly waved her skin and wood hand. "But between lusting after boys, acting meek and looking strange . . . Well, I just can't imagine you growing into a normal, proper man. You're really more like another daughter." She laughed and gestured with her chopsticks. "Though you're older sister is practically a boy. She's so strong and independent. It's too bad you can't switch personalities and fix it." Her round head rotated in her youngest child's direction. "I want to return you to the hospital and get my money back."

Graffiti licked her fingers clean with an unnaturally long tongue. "Want me to eat her, brother? I can chew wood easily with this last set of teeth you thought up."

"Or you could shoot her." A voice drifted through the air.

"Disgusting waste of oxygen and space!" A murmur of voices without faces pressed in around them, and the walls started to melt.

"It doesn't really matter. She's just stupid, anyway." There was a ripple in space, like heat rising into cool air.

"Kill her! Kill them all!"

"Cut her down. Through the skin, through the muscle, to the bone." Steam rose around them and quickly thickened into a heated fog.

"No, I can't. If we just leave each other alone, it's fine. It's only when we talk." The blonde said with his face hidden in his hands.

Graffiti arched an eyebrow and smirked. "Have you had this argument before? She would have died with the rest of the world if Black Angel had succeeded."

"NO! No. I didn't mean it, but it's fake. It's all fake. There must be reason why I can't stop thinking this!" Mitarai suddenly snapped and banged his fist on the table.

"Is something wrong, Kiyoshi? The scarecrow spoke politely though a thin red mouth. The hot mist drifted between them as if they sat inside a sauna.

"NO! I'm sorry. I'm just . . . having a bad day. There's nothing wrong." Mitarai forced himself to smile and quietly returned to his unstable dinner. He stared at his food in silence. Pain filled his eyes.

Graffiti reached out and took his hand. "No wandering off."

He could barely make out her broad smile in the dense steam, and the heat was making him sleepy and heavy. Everything went white, except the pressure of her hand. He felt nothing but heat and the absence of time.

"You know it's impossible to really sleep here, don't you? You are already in your subconscious and wide awake, so there is no escaping into sleep." Graffiti's voice wrapped around him as a cold breeze through the dense, hot white. "And didn't you want to fight instead of run?"

Mitarai groaned at that reminder. The mist dropped in temperature and increased in weight. He was underwater, but an unnatural gravity bound him to a hard ground. He couldn't focus his eyes on the ground without it shifting out of focus again. He clearly saw Graffiti sitting before him. She sat cross-legged on a solid nothing, but her wild hair and school clothes swayed in an underwater current. Energetic strings of light danced across her body and through the depths from the ripples in the distant surface. The cold water made his skin and fingers numb. It was either easy for him the breath water, or he wasn't breathing at all. _"It doesn't really matter, as long as it doesn't hurt."_

"_Aren't you done running yet?" _Graffiti's voice spoke inside of his head. She smiled sweetly with yellow fire burning in her pupils.

"If you choose to be my enemy, I will show you no mercy." Graffiti's mouth moved, but it was Kurama's voice. Mitarai blinked, and a red fox sat in her place. It bared its fangs and dived at his throat.

"NO, Please!" Mitarai crumpled up into a ball, but the fangs never touched him. His back rested against something soft and warm. In his mouth, the water tasted like blood.

"It will all be over soon." A black doberman the size of a man was curled up next to him. "All human cruelty will stop."

"_That's Sensui-san's voice!_" Mitarai tried to scramble away, but his clothes stuck to the doberman. He pushed against the black dog, and his hands sunk into hot tar. "AAAAHH!"

"It won't burn if you don't resist." The dog smiled arrogantly. "Join me. We can end humanity's torture and bring peace to this poor, defiled world."

With a streak of light, the dog burst like a popped balloon. Black dissolved into the current from the tainted ground, but Mitarai's hands kept a black stain. "I'm . . .I'm not going back to him. I'm never going to be a bad guy again! I can't . . .I can't make it stop." He looked at his stained hands and started to cry.

"What's the problem? I know you're not evil." Kuwabara stood over him with his arms crossed. He wore a white tee shirt and wrinkled jeans, and he smiled at Mitarai like they had just met on the street. "I knew it all along. It just took the other guys a while to catch up to my insight." He nodded with self-importance and kneeled down to where Mitarai sat crumpled up on the ground. "You've really turned over a new leaf since I saved you."

Mitarai smiled, but the tears didn't stop. They joined the water as soon as he cried them. "I can't get out, Kuwabara-san. I don't want to be trapped in here forever. What if they just leave me here?!" He locked eyes with the giant red-head. "If I stay, I'll go crazy! The territory will keep trapping people and picking them apart if I stay. But if I leave, people will die. I know they're bad guys, but I was once too. Please, what should I do?"

Kuwabara kissed him, and Mitarai's mind went completely blank. For an instant, everything floated in total absence of light, water, color and space. Mitarai enjoyed the warm pressure for a minute more. Then he broke the kiss, and looked down at his black hands in misery. "That's right. I forgot this wasn't real for a moment. Kuwabara-san would never do that."

"What a great picture it made though." Graffiti stood next to him grinning at the snapshot on her phone.

"How long have you been there?!" Mitarai blushed bright red.

"All along, but there's no Graffiti here." She chuckled evilly at her own joke. "No Graffiti, no Graffiti, no Graffiti, no Graffiti here!" The tiny girl sang like an elementary child reciting a nursery rhyme.

"Stop it! I want out!" The blonde jumped to his feet and grabbed the tiny girl's shoulders. "You locked me in here! HOW DO I GET OUT!" He screamed into her composed, smiling face.

"Shame on you for treating a lady so." Graffiti's perfect smile stretched to her ears, and she brushed off his hands.

"But I . . ." He stumbled back a step. "I can't take this. I don't want to help you destroy people."

"You'll kill people if you leave."

Mitarai's mouth opened, but no words came. In the end, he just looked away.

"How many murders are you willing to commit to call yourself a hero? Will you kill Graffiti, Oni and Kyo to save heartless strangers? What are you trying to make up for? Look at me, brother."

Mitarai nervously complied, and the image of Graffiti flickered before him. She lazily extended her hand once again. When her fingers closed, it was around the neck of a middle-aged woman. The woman's hair was long and wavy, dyed black with light brown roots. Her gentle features were panicked with her eyes squeezed shut. She kicked and clawed at the iron grip around her throat. She wore a blue dress with a frilly white apron.

"NO!" Mitarai took a step forward, and the tiny claw-like hand tightened.

"It's not real remember? There's got to be a reason you can't stop thinking this." Graffiti's face flickered. For a split second, a second figure appeared in her place, taller and blonde. The voice changed, and it seemed to vibrate the water surrounding them. "You can't deny me forever. I'm sick of pretending everything is fine!" Then the voice spoke in Mitarai's thoughts, and it was his voice. _"Who's the only person here, brother?" _

Graffiti's face smiled flawlessly, and her eyes burned with a dark hunger. Slowly her brown, burning eyes became blue, and she smiled even deeper at that little joke.

"No! It can't be."

"_Let's play, brother. I'm going to snap my fingers . . ." _She raised her free hand and poised her middle finger against her thumb. _"And either I crush my mother's neck, or I return your need to breathe. Your pick, M-chan." _


	12. The Second Generation

I do not own Yu Yu Hakusho.

The 2nd Generation

The vast concrete room was supported by thick columns and high arches. The ceiling was strewn with black wires, metal tracks and innumerable multi-colored spotlights. The lights clustered on the high ceiling like the compound eyes of an insect. They quickly flickered and constantly changed the colors that painted the room and people. Tall mosaics were assembled from found bits of tile and broken glass. The images depicted doorways, suns, disembodied hands and elongated people walking on air. The floor was covered with round balls of cloth around a single standing lady's feet. Occasionally, a ball of cloth would speak "Amen" or "Save Us", and a human-looking hand would briefly be raised toward the ceiling.

"A temple to disco?" Kuwabara scoffed at the flashing colors and bizarre pictures. He stood to the far left under an arched concrete doorway. By silent and unanimous agreement, Hagari stood on the far right with Kurama, Kamiya and Koenma between them.

Kuwabara looked hard at the standing woman. Her straight blonde hair flowed to the waist of her heavy robes. She stood on a narrow pedestal above the kneeling cult and raised her ashy hands to the ceiling in praise. The lights painted her skin in random flashes of color, but he could still make out fine stitches across her fair arms."Hey, these things monsters or people?" The large boy muttered to Kurama.

Kurama could smell human, burnt wires, and traces of demon. _"However, they all possess spirit energy. A trait that the previous monsters lacked. Their energy is weaker than average, and it feels similar to the puppetmaster's energy."_

Doctor Kamiya stood mentally listing body parts and proportions that seemed subtly wrong. _"Of course, I can't call it a proper examination. I can barely see their shapes under all those thick robes."_

Koenma considered the priestess and her devoted flock. _"They seem capable of speech, but I wonder how much of their self-awareness is defined by the group. Have these creatures retained a human mind? Or a human soul?"_

Hagari looked past the flashing lights to the next open doorway. _"Barely human or advanced monster. They're still the enemy, and they're in my way."_

"Hey! Don't ignore me! I asked you a question! What are these guys?!" The hot-headed punkyelled and pointed at the balls of cloth.

"The definition of humanity is a fine and arbitrary line in the house of Stein. Is it speech? Is it soul? Is it will? Does it matter? The living exist. How far do your intentions shift based on the label that you apply to us?" The priestess gracefully lowered her hands as she spoke and brought the palms together before her chest. "Let us now pray for the end of death. That humanity will be forever free of it, and that the eternal light of science shall sustain us all. Join us, strangers. We praise the everlasting life."

The congregation got to their feet and joined hands in concentric circles around their priestess. "We pledge our lives and our loyalty to our creator who has freed humanity from the darkness of death and despair. Him we obey. Him we worship. We will further his work and crush the enemies of his unending light." Abruptly, the entire congregation turned to face the intruders. The cult leered at them with hard eyes and tense muscles. The flickering multi-colored lights timed the seconds in a silent countdown.

"Do you understand the importance of the medical genius who conquered death?" The priestess raised one open hand. She looked like Hamlet without the skull.

POW! For an instant, every colored light was on at once. The room swam in bright white light without walls, floor or people. The congregation panicked in the flash, and the invaders jerked their heads around for an attack. Only the priestess was motionless with one hand raised tragically and surrounded by blinding light. Then the room became as dark as sealed mine.

"It's a sign, dudes!" A gravelly voice called out in the darkness. "They've come to take Oni! They bring death!"

Horrified screams and gasps ran through the unseen cult, and heavy robes started rustling.

"Uh, guys . . ." Kuwabara nervously muttered to the dark patch where his teammates stood. "Did we ever decide what disco monks are? I mean, do we kill them?"

The darkness was broken by the faint glow surrounding a concrete pebble in Sniper's palm. "They want to kill us. Of course, we kill them."

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The bare yellow light bulbs hung like ripe pears from the concrete ceiling. They glared brightly with a loud buzz. Then every light in the underground, concrete hallway burnt out.

"Coincidence, Max?" An arrogant boy asked his friend in the darkness. "The lights and surveillance cameras go out just before I destroy the stasis room."

"Our Senpai doesn't leave details to chance. We'd be fools to believe in coincidence now." A smooth, low voice replied. Max cocked his ear toward Graffiti's tiny footsteps speeding down the concrete hall. "That's odd. I hear her moving away from Doctor Stein and Oni."

The arrogant boy stylishly ran his fingers through his red bangs out of habit. No one could see his winning smile in the dark. "With all the running feet in this concrete maze, you're probably listening to the wrong footsteps." Kyo pointed in the darkness to where he knew a heavy metal lock hung on a steel door.

"Deconstruct." The word rolled off Kyo's tongue. Metal groaned as the lock casing twisted in the pitch-black hallway. The steel casing peeled back like an orange rind, and several small lock pieces clinked as they hit the concrete floor. A large bang echoed when the twisted deadbolt hit the concrete.

"We're in." Kyo pushed the steel door open with a groan from the rusty hinges, and a faint blue light poured through the gap. An old back-up generator sparked in the corner and powered the florescent emergency light above it. It also powered rows upon rows of transparent blue and metal wires. Dozens of young people hung from the wooden walls by thick tubes that connected into their chests and waists.

"My sisters, my brothers . . .." Kyo's extravagant speech died on his lips as he looked at the starved faces. "You're all so thin! I can see your bones under the skin." He tried to smile upon seeing them all again, and strutted over to his nearest sister. He ran his hand over the indent between the two bones in his sister's forearm. "I'm sorry. I didn't want to leave you here so long. I was just afraid. I . . ." He brushed back her long brown hair and stared into her blank, sunken eyes. "You're all so thin." He repeated helplessly.

"Wasn't Oni feeding you? Even if the Doctor was just keeping you for parts, what's the point of starving you like this!?" Kyo clenched his fist around a blue transparent tube until it crushed in his palm. Iridescent blue liquid ran over his fist, and his sister stirred in her bounds.

"Deconstruct!" The thick wires shuddered. They started to pull back into the wooden wall which wriggled and jerked. "Deconstruct all of it! Not one bolt! Not one cell of half-demon, part-third, who-knows-what stasis room left!" Kyo's eyes twitched with fury, and Max calmly abandoned his post at the door.

The young medic carried a small powersaw used to cut bones in the operating room. He fired up the bone saw and began slicing through the binding tubes like a weedeater through brush. One by one, he carried the half-conscious second generation reanimates out into the hallway and gently leaned them up against the concrete wall. Some of them stirred and began to speak in fragments. Max returned to the increasing warped and unstable room as if unloading a truck of breakable goods.

The walls convulsed and made grating sounds in pain. It seemed to Max that the room slowly shrunk, but Kyo noticed nothing in his fury. "Destroy! Destroy it!" Kyo muttered under his breath. His sister fell against his shoulder with her bounds completely dissolved. Kyo had pushed his arm into the false wood up to his elbow. He poured all of his hate and energy into ripping apart the room's internal biology.

"Kyon." Max said like he was calling him to dinner. "The stasis room will collapse on its own now. That girl that's leaning up against you is the only prisoner still in the stasis room. Be a good brother and carry her out before the dying ceiling, and the half-mile of earth above it, crush you both." He stood in the doorway like a patient parent. His white lab coat was splattered with the iridescent blue liquid that dripped off of his bone saw.

Kyo looked up at the drooping, shaking ceiling and bolted for the door with the unconscious girl slung over his shoulder. The hole his arm left in the wall spewed a black ooze that smelled like swampwater. The wall rolled toward the floor and dragged the ceiling with it. Max slammed the steel door shut, and Kyo morphed the door frame and the door edge into one warped metal. Max covered his ears at the inhuman scream when the stasis room collapsed under the earth above it.

"It's dead, right?" Kyo breathed heavily and waited for Max's confirmation. "That damned third is dead?"

"Yeah." Max dropped his hands from his ears and listened for Still. He heard metal grating against ribcages. At least three voices screamed per second under the roar of fire and wind. "Still-chan has begun the annihilation of the thirds in their quarters. It sounds like Thalia-chan and Mel-chan are her back-up. Not that she needs it." He added with a smirk. Then Max focused on the impossibly swift, tiny footfalls that ran toward the intruders. "Graffiti has turned away from Oni. Hopefully, our random leader hasn't changed her plans in mid-battle."

Kyo was on the floor feeling for each of his siblings in the pitch dark. "They're all here, right? We got them all out?" His usually confident voice was filled with worry.

"Yes." Max answered calmly. "We need to treat them immediately." He rummaged in his lab coat pocket for the largest bottle of pills. "All the Doctor gives me now is opinoids and penicillin. With enough painkiller, most of them can walk."

"Oni is still controlled by Doctor Stein. We have to wait until . . ." Kyo's voice trailed off.

"Until Senpai kills Doctor Stein." Max finished for him with satisfaction in his voice. "Actually, we're going to Sea Man. He can feed them, and they can't afford the wait."

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A crack broke in the shifting ground of Mitarai's dream world. Red syrup swirled into the water and spiraled around itself until a red boy stood on the unstable ground. The red being shifted his weight onto his left foot, and ran his hand through his messy bangs. The ripples in the water's surface above resembled talking faces leering down at him. Even though he was underwater, rain fell from their open mouths._"Well, he is a water psychic, but this water world is giving me the creeps." _Kyo looked around for the golem master, but saw nothing on the river bottom. Then he noticed a shadow drifting across the strands of rippling light. Kyo looked to the surface, and a boy's body was floating face down.

"_MAX! Pull us out!"_ Kyo's thoughts screamed, but his energy body couldn't speak. _"Right, Crap! For once, Max can't hear me." _The red teen pulled an eruption of red energy through the floor.

"What is it?! What's wrong?!" In a dusty storage room, the medic yelled into an old microphone.

"_What does he mean, 'What's wrong'? He's the one that picked this signal."_ Kyo forced up more energy. The crack spread into a fissure, and the water turned translucent red.

"I can't do that! Still-chan and the others are fighting right now! Do you have any idea how fast she burns energy in a fight?! We can't tell if Oni is still supporting the territory or not!"

"_Still-chan! Still-chan! Change the record already! She'll die anyway if Kiyoshi-kun's mind is destroyed!" _He fractured the ground in all directions like a spider's web.Then the shifting ground rippled and resealed itself below his feet. _"What? How?"_

There was a long silence. "Five minutes. No more than that! Just get Sea Man stabilized, so he can go back in!"

Kyo sighed in relief and noticed that the red water tasted like blood. Then hands grabbed his ankles, and the shifting ground grew a smiling mouth between Kyo's feet. It was Graffiti's perfect, sadisitic smile. Then it flickered, and it was Mitarai's face that continually dissolved and reformed from the clear ground. Kyo automatically looked up to the floating body, but he couldn't find it among the dozens of corpses on the water's surface. _"Any year now, Max!"_

Then it was gone. Kyo sat up on the old brown couch, and quickly yanked a twisted metal bit out of his arm. "Is he awake?" He dashed around his ill and unconscious siblings in the crowded back rooms. Kyo looked into the small glass window in the metal pod's door, and two exhausted, terrified blue eyes looked back. Kyo leaned against the dream machine and smiled with relief. "That was close. We almost lost him."

Max stood among a tangle of disconnected tubes and wires with a chilling frown on his face. "So he eats himself in the dream machine, like Senpai does. How useful is he then?"

"He's not as bad as Frankie. She couldn't take five minutes in her own mind, and half an hour was always the best case scenario." Kyo started unhooking the complicated door lock. "Kiyoshi-kun is much calmer than Frankie."

"Everyone is calmer than she is." Max pointed out and rubbed the bridge of his nose between two fingers. "After all the duplicates Doctor Stein has made, only Oni has a clear enough subconscious to live in the dream machine."

Kyo wrenched the heavy door open, and brackish water poured out onto the concrete floor. Mitarai's weakened body was dragged out with the current.

Mitarai ripped off the air mask and sat trembling and naked on the wet floor. He didn't even glance at Kyo, Max or the crowd of ailing seconds leaning against every dark wall. "Swampwater. No wonder everything smells like swampwater!" He curled up his legs against his chest, and laughed in an unstable rhythm.

Kyo shot Max an 'I-told-you-so' look.

Max folded his arm across his chest and mouthed the words 'five minutes'.

Kyo frowned, but quickly swept it off with a winning smile. He kneeled down and patted Mitarai's shoulder."Are you alright, Kiyoshi-kun?"

"NO!" Mitarai grabbed Kyo's denim jacket and shook the red-headed monster. "Why?! Why did you do this to me?!"

"Now, take it easy. You're not well, and we didn't know how badly you would respond to the dream machine. Oni's been in there for years without going crazy." Kyo flashed a smile, and Mitarai literally growled in response.

"We didn't want anyone to die." Max said smoothly as he walked up to volatile golem master. "We still don't want anyone to die."

Mitarai kept his fists closed on Kyo's jacket. He stared at the tall young man like he could morph into a blood-thirsty creature at any instant.

"I'm Max." The white and blue haired boy said. "I have joined the reanimates in their revolution against Doctor Stein. The dying teenagers you see against the wall are second generation reanimates who were slated to be dismembered as inadequate experiments. They must eat the energy Oni has prepared for them in the territory. They don't have alternative energy-gathering abilities like Graffiti and Kyo do. Most of the second generation does not." Max's already droopy eyes were weighed down with sadness.

Mitarai risked taking his eyes off of the cool medic and studied Kyo's flashy smile. Two long eyeteeth hung over his bottom lip. _"Fangs. Just like Graffiti. So both of them really are laboratory monsters." _ He already knew that, but it ached horribly to confirm it. _"Oni too, of course. They all seemed so human to me. More so than most people." _He scanned the room, and bone thin people leaned against every available inch of wall. They were half-conscious, and they cried or muttered with unreasoning gestures. Empathy forced an unwanted sadness into his chest, and he cursed himself for that weakness. _"No, I am not working for them!" _Mitarai quickly got to his feet, and the room fuzzed out into a gray haze. He collapsed back unto knees. _"I can't run, and I can't fight. No! What do I do?!" _

"You alright there, beautiful?" Kyo smiled and leaned towards him flirtatiously.

Mitarai suddenly realized that he was naked. He covered himself with his hands and vehemently shook his head at whatever Kyo might say or do next. "NO! That's it! I'm done! I WANT TO GO HOME!" He could feel his skin burn red with embarrassment.

"Oh, That's so cute, Kiyoshi-kun. You should see yourself-OW!" Kyo rubbed the new bump on his head, and glared at Max.

Max stood ready over Kyo's shoulder with his right hand in a tight fist. "We need to you reestablish the reanimates' links into the territory. After they regain some strength, they can feed without assistance."

"No! I can't go back!" The flush was instantly bleached with fear.

"Please!" Kyo grabbed Mitarai's wrist.

"Let go!"

"Please, if they don't get energy, they'll die. These are my siblings." Kyo stared into Mitarai's eyes. He tried to smile, but fear shook his lips. "I abandoned my brothers and my sisters. I was afraid of Doctor Stein, that he would come for me one day and take me apart. They couldn't live without Oni, so I left them behind. I just got them back, and they're dying on me!"

Mitarai looked again at the emancipated people lined up against the wall. He could see more dying reanimates lying across the floor of the next room. He twisted his wrist slightly in Kyo's grasp and knew that he had no hope of breaking the grip. Max stood over Mitarai with a stone cold expression, and Kyo's arrogance collapsed in front of him.

"Please, I'll give you anything. Anything I have to give. Save them!"

Mitarai twisted his wrist in Kyo's grip again and regarded him with both fear and sympathy. "I can make conditions then?"


	13. Choosing Enemies

Sorry it took so long to update. A friend read my story and said that I needed to organize. I'm in the middle of writing the backstory for everything that happened at Trans labs with all the O.C.s.Then I need to write an outline of how this all ends. I've had the ideas in my head, but it's different writing it out. Options are closed, and characters become different people. You know what I'm trying to say. I'm saying it's going to be another long delay before the next update. Sorry in advance.

This is essentially a fighting chapter. I hate my fight scenes, and I am requesting suggestions to make them more exciting.

Disclaimer: I do not own Yu Yu Hakusho.

Choosing Enemies

Doctor Kamiya had been pushed into a dark corner of the cult room where he wished his spirit awareness was better. His slashes at the cult's constantly moving limbs frequently swished blindly through the air. They worked on him from both sides in two teams of five, and Koenma's fighters had long since been forced apart. He dodged a crude blast of white energy from his left and immediately slashed his psychic scalpel to his right. True to form, two brown robes jumped back in mid-step. Then something hard and cold hit his shoulder, and Doctor realized he had been pushed against the wall. _"Damn! I can't retreat any further. Of course, they can't get behind me again either." _ He kept his left arm wrapped around his waist. A deep bloody gauge by his left shoulderblade had plainly caused nerve damage to that arm. Endorphins killed the pain, but nothing brought back the movement. With their prey cornered, the brown robes silently circled around Kamiya. Freakish shadows danced across the room cast by Kuwabara's bright blade as he swung it somewhere the dark mob. The priestess stood statue still above a sea of thirds with her shadowed profile in motionless prayer. A glowing pebble shot into the dead ceiling lights. Kamiya smiled to know that somewhere Hagari was still alive and fighting.

All ten lunged at him, and Doctor swung his psychic scalpel in a broad arc. He sliced the chests of two, but another seized his arm. The lanky boy twisted Kamiya's arm and forced him to the concrete floor. Then there was blood everywhere, but it wasn't Kamiya's blood. Blood sprayed like fountains from the monks' beheaded necks, and their corpses limply collapsed around him. In the low light, stood a young female dressed in tight black with a bloody blade strapped to her arm. Her full figure made a perfect, motionless silhouette, and her face was covered by shadow. Her long, loose hair laid neatly down her back, and she casually wiped the blood off the three watch faces on her arm.

"That was sloppy." She said in a monotone. "Regroup or die." Then she vanished like a ghost, and immediately more arteries burst in a path to Kamiya's left.

"_Who and what was that?"_

Still glanced back at Doctor Kamiya's frozen, shocked faced, and a faint smirk turned the corners of her mouth. Around her everything was motionless, trapped between two instants of time. She paused and opened the arteries of any third that she happened to pass like she was slicing ripe fruit. The blood sprayed up in slow motion, and Still frowned. She glanced at her three watches and only the center one ticked away the seconds. _"My time alteration is not at full strength anymore. I will be more conservative with my energy."_ She immediately glanced back to the frozen priestess, and her eye twitched. _"I have an errand to run first."_

Still reappeared in the normal time flow by a pair of second generation females.

"There's my girl! I was wondering where you got to." The huge woman clapped Still on the shoulder. Thalia wore a heavy green dress over a simple white collar shirt and had short, wild brown hair. She snapped her fingers, and a black and red flame burned above her thumb. She held the flame to the mouth of a tiny girl like she was lighting a cigarette. The pale girl had thin, jet black hair that hung to her shoulders and wore an elastic white sundress dotted with yellow flowers. Mel closed her large, dark eyes and inhaled, and inhaled, and inhaled. Her delicate chest expanded to twice the size of her huge companion's as if her ribs were made of rubber. Mel formed her mouth into a small, perfect 'O" and a fierce wind compressed though a roaring half-inch space to spread the flame. The fire roared and swirled as a fierce, burning whirlwind sucking in a dozen fleeing cult members. Their ashes rained down on the battlefield and their charred bones and robes scattered across the floor.

Still's killing streak went largely unnoticed on the chaotic battlefield, but this sudden explosion of fire and death stopped the all the fighters for an instant. Terror seized the cult as they recognized their betrayers.

The priestess looked at Still, and stretched out her arms like a drowning child. "My sister, you fight us?!"

Still addressed Thalia and Mel as if assigning them household chores. "Our energy supply is low right now. Kill efficiently." The raven-haired beauty became a dark blur of speed, slicing all thirds in her path.

Kurama noted her passage with a nod as if she was an expected guest at a dinner party.

Koenma stood close behind the spirit fox, under the protection of his rose whip. His nerves were making him sweat, but he maintained an 'I'm-in-control' attitude. The colorful mosaic behind them was softly lit with tiny lampweeds that clung to the grout in the cracks.

"So the rebels against Doctor Stein have decided to joined us. While it's convenient for them, at least." Koenma's eyes narrowed at the shaking priestess. Her pale arms continued to stretch out in Still's direction. He sighed at the troublesome cult leader. "Why couldn't it be some focused, reasonable villian?"

Kurama stiffened suddenly, and covered his nose and mouth. "Don't breath!"

A cloud of yellow dust rolled toward them from an arched doorway not fifteen feet away. It filled the opening, and spread low along the floor like a powder snow blown in by the wind. A couple thirds were caught in the rolling dust. They coughed violently through their hands as they hobbled away. A boy with wide green eyes and spiked green hair emerged from the thick yellow haze. His build was average and his cloths were a plain tan shirt with stained brown pants. His ashy-white mouth was fixed in a broad smile so immobile, it could have been painted on. He tilted his head at the choking monks and slowly spread out his arms and hands. His black-tinted fingernails shot out as a needles, and instantly new barbs grew and shot out again. The thirds' eyes rolled back into their heads and their skin began to pale and wrinkle. He turned his fixed smile to Kurama and Koenma and lazily waved.

They both tensed and watched his hand.

The green-haired boy waved his arm limply forward, and three half-beast reanimates leapt through the dust. They ran down prey on all fours, but stood on their hind legs to fight with their long front claws.

A tiny figure cartwheeled through the toxic cloud after the animal monsters. The thin child wore a white carnival mask dripping with blue glitter tears and framed with wild, multi-colored hair. She swiftly attacked a nearby monk with a bright yellow bat. Kurama assumed the child was a female from the red and white striped hotpants, the rainbow tubetop, and the large pink bow on the small of her back.

She spotted the spirit fox, and waved like a neighbor on her doorstep. "Hey there! Don't let us slow you down, Foxy. Don't you want to at least try to save the queen bee and her faithful swarm?"

"_Graffiti?" _Kurama frowned. "Shouldn't you be freeing Oni from Doctor Stein during this uproar?"

"And miss the fight?!" She dashed off with her bat raised above her head.

Kurama's mouth opened briefly in shock before turning to a worried frown._"Strange. Graffiti shouldn't be here, and why is she fighting without using her talent? Perhaps she's conserving energy?" _He shook his head and spoke to Koenma without taking his eyes off the masked girl. "Something is amiss, but we don't have time to fully analyze her actions now. If you still desire to speak with this congregation's leader, their time is running short. They will not last long against this onslaught from their own kind."

The monks now attacked awkwardly with trembling limbs and no strategy. At the center of her loyal guard, the priestess looked from the poisonous pollen, to the charred bodies, to the bloody trail left behind by Still. Another wave of second generation fighters burst through the yellow dust and set upon killing her followers. "Why? We are all of Stein! He has remade us all anew! What is this blasphemous madness that we murder our own!" Fear flashed in her tearful eyes. Then she spied Kurama and Koenma running directly toward her, and rage consumed her. "Outsiders! You have corrupted our holy house! You bring a mad disease with your tainted judgements. You turn us against ourselves!" She pointed her finger at them like a prophet announcing doom, and all the monks swarmed like rabid animals.

Kamiya jumped back against the wall as a brown-robed third snapped at him and snarled like an angry dog. The cult advanced on all fours with a crazed bloodlust in their wide eyes. Doctor took a test tube out of his white coat. _"I still probably shouldn't use it. The spread of disease is so hard to control."_

Then Kuwabara stepped between the crazy enemy and his injured teammate with his spirit sword in hand.

"What's with these weirdos? First they fight like a ninja army. Then they fight like scared nerds. Now they're dogs. It's like someone keeps changing the channel. Wish I knew where the remote was." Kuwabara swung his sword and struck a snarling boy with the flat of his blade and knocked him into the concrete wall. The lanky teen whimpered and curled up on the floor.

"Just give it up already. You're too weak for me, little doggies!"Kuwabara smiled broadly. Then he noticed Kurama and Koenma advancing on the trembling priestess. "What are they doing? She's not a fighter. She's just been standing there the whole time."

"She, I believe," Kamiya walked up to the huge swordsman's side while watching the growling thirds form a pack. "is the remote you were looking for. Her thoughts have an unnatural influence over the other cult members."

"Well, duh. It's a cult, and she's the ringleader. That doesn't mean she's a fighter though." Kuwabara raised his sword, and the pack yelped as fire licked their legs and arms. They ran without him taking a step.

"Oh, my bad! Were those your thirds?" A tall broad-shouldered girl in a green dress smiled at Kuwabara with her hand engulfed in flame. She smiled broadly and warmly, but the only teeth in her mouth were two long eyeteeth. A small girl with dark eyes and hair peered from behind her skirt.

"Back-off, Lady! I don't need help from you lab rats! For all I know, you might be another enemy, and you're just pretending to be good!"

"Ooh! Aren't you a fireball? And you're actually taller than me too." Thalia winked one eye, and Mel tugged on her skirt urgently. "Yes, yes. We're working now, but I will come by to see you later, big boy." She blew him a kiss, and immediately refocused on which enemies to barbeque.

"Erk! NO, That's O.K. I've got a girlfriend, she's a lot prettier than-" Kuwabara bit off his sentence. _"Oh! I better not tell her that!" _His small eyes were wide open.

Doctor Kamiya rolled his eyes and placed the test tube back into his coat pocket. He could see Kurama's whip rise from the dark throng that guarded the priestess. _"He's almost there."_

Kurama swirled this thorned lash through the reanimates before their tall, blonde priestess. Inexplicably, the tip of his whip dissolved into the air before her and a burnt end returned into his hand. The fox looked at the perfectly still priestess, and then at the burned whip. "Either you possess remarkable spirit energy, or you can manipulate the energy of your followers."

She glared coldly at the half-breed and said nothing.

"Priestess. I am Prince Koenma of the Spirit World. I would speak with you regarding the future of your people." Koenma stepped out from behind Kurama with a speech running through his head.

Her gaze remained stone cold. The thirds around them crouched down, ready to pounce, and they held that position. "What do outsiders such as you understand? You come bringing death to the man who has created us! Doctor Stein is the future of humanity. He will engineer humans so powerful that they will fear no gods or demons. Humans will be their own gods, and science their instrument. But even as I say this, I see doubt in your faces. You do not understand."

"So you are human then?" Koenma pressed.

The priestess paused, but could think of no reason not to answer. "Yes. Our DNA is human, altered by science and demonic energy. We serve as stepping stones on our father's path to perfection."

Koenma considered this with a mildly bored expression, and with a pack of drooling monks encircling him. "You're dangerously insane, but I believe I can work with that. Let us negotiate a mutually beneficial arrangement. Neither of us stands to gain from fighting."

Then the loudspeakers crackled with static and a thundering voice began to ramble endlessly. "You think the darkness hides you from me?! The lab is my body and I am its mind! Lenore, I know you. You're wrong about the territory. Oni should push further, feed on himself. Then, then we will know the inner workings. Not just the parts but the symbiotic whole. What I wouldn't give for a scalpel that could cut that! . . ."

"Our creator speaks of our existence. Listen for the deeper meanings of his genius!" The priestess raised her hands to the broken lights, and all of her followers returned to kneeling prayer as if the battle had never happened.

Koenma stopped dumfounded. His face looked as if someone was burping the alphabet and people were applauding it. ". . . Hey! I'm still talking to you! It's important, you brainwashed guinea pig . . . Do you want to be trapped down here forever?"

The room echoed with the cult chanting interpretations of the insane ramblings in perfect unison. "The darkness is the void of separation within us all. The separation of death, between our minds and our spirits, our conscious and our sub-conscious. The place where our denied existence is kept hidden from the faces in the waking light. . ."

"They've got one heck of an imagination don't they?" Kuwabara stared at the chanting enemies balled up with their foreheads pressed against the bloody concrete. "So, are we done? This was how we came in, right? Did we win? There's an awful lot of monster-humans left, but nobody's fighting."

"_There's nothing left of his reason at all." _Kamiya's listened to the madman's rambling while he stared into the pitch black of the entry tunnel. _"The priestess will be just as detached from reality as Doctor Stein. Koenma-san won't be able to negotiate, especially with Doctor Stein's ranting in her ears." _Doctor was surprised at the sharp disappointment these thoughts brought him. "You saw Sniper go down here?" He asked Kuwabara half-heartedly.

"Why do my teammates keep ignoring me?!" Kuwabara snapped.

"I have no idea what will happen." Doctor responded flatly. "The battle stopped for negotiations, which were interrupted and are failing. I believe the new psychics are also laboratory monsters. I don't know how human they are or what they want. The fighting may start again, or we could simple walk straight through while they're distracted. What I do know is we're missing an ally." He shot a serious look at Kuwabara, and the red-head scoffed.

"Yeah, I follow. Got to put our teammate first, the fruity punk."

A gasp of collective horror came from the cult and the seconds alike.

"What? What happened? What did I just miss?" Kuwabara swung his head from side to side, but only saw fear on every reanimate's face.

Kurama strolled down through the kneeling, terrified thirds. He motioned for Kuwabara to join him. Overhead, the loudspeakers continued to boom nonsense across the shadowed room.

"Uh, Well . . . I guess . . ." Kuwabara looked back and forth between Kurama and Kamiya like child ordered two separate places by his parents.

"It's fine." Kamiya lit his hand in blue light and walked into the tunnel alone. "I still have use of one hand, and Sniper might need immediate medical attention."

"Uh, Okay. You watch your back. You're not as tough as me, you know." With that, the red-head boy jogged over to Kurama's side. "What's going on? Why is everybody so freaked-out?"

"Doctor Stein threatened to end the puppetmaster's life unless we were killed immediately." Kurama answered calmly. He threw an expectant look in the masked child's direction. "Graffiti has gone to a great lengths to minimize casualties. However, all of the reanimates need the puppetmaster to survive. Even if they have Mitarai-kun, they cannot treat this threat lightly. I need you to guard Koenma-sama while I am distracted."

Before Kuwabara could ask another question, the thin masked child ran up to them with impossibly quick, light feet. "Hello, esteemed enemies!" She bowed theatrically. "This is my little people-as-pets shop. In the interest of not damaging the merchandise, I'm calling you out Foxy. We fight as representatives. If I die, my soldiers surrender. If you die, we'll give your team one chance to run. After all, if I beat you, what chance do the rest of them have?"

"What's that supposed to mean, you little brat! You don't think I can take you?!" Kuwabara brandished his sword, and the child turned up her nose.

"I know the light's bad, but look again Brickhead." She turned her back to him to show off how tightly the hotpants fit her narrow hips. "I'm female." She said primping the large pink bow. "That means I'm already out of your league. You don't fight girls."

Kuwabara stared at the small, bony rear. "Not much of a girl." He muttered. "Fine. I'm sure Kurama can hand you your scrawny ass anyway."

She put her hand over her chest as if deeply insulted. Then an orange light faintly glowed beneath her rainbow top. "I have my notes prepared. Let's see if you can guess what phase just became real."

She collapsed into a pile of fleshy goo.

"Huh? What the hell?! I think she killed herself!" Kuwabara stood over the fleshy goo with his eyes bulging. "Should we do something?"

Then the pile shot up at Kuwabara's face, and he fell backwards swearing. It popped into an even smaller rubbery figure with a head as big as its body.

"HA! Let's see you beat me now!" The two-foot tall freak said in a tiny voice. She stretched her fanged mouth to twice the width of her masked face. The she reached down her throat to pull out a pink mallet. She swung it from side to side and her arms stretched like rubber bands. Her icy smile was a foot wide and flame literally burned in her enormous eyes.

A single sweatdrop rolled down Kurama's temple as he stared at the chibi monster. "Interesting choice."

"Hell, Yeah! Let's go, Cutie!" She giggled cutely and raised the pink mallet above her oversized head. She swung it in Kurama's direction, and her arms stretched to reach him. He dodged swiftly, and the impact made a cracked crater in the concrete floor.

Kurama's eyes widened. He remembered some of the impossible things he'd seen chibis do and survive in cartoons. "Kuwabara-kun, get back!"

IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII

It was too dark to see anything down the concrete hall, but the attacks had obviously stopped. It was quiet. Sniper stood by leaning his left arm against the entry tunnel's wall. It hurt his knee to stand on only his right leg, but it was pure agony put any weight on his left. He concentrated his power on a pebble to create a faint light.

The thirds that had chased Hagari down the entry tunnel were sliced open on the floor. Their arms and legs were stretched out as if they were slashed in mid-step. Kneeling in front of him was a pale girl with long ebony hair dressed all in black. She methodically wiped her blade clean on a monk's robe. From above, he could see down her large breasts, pressed into her tight black top. She glanced up at Sniper, and her cold eyes flashed green like an animal's eyes in the headlights.

"My commander said that you were a useful fighter, and yet you allowed these pathetic creatures to take your mobility." She eyed his bloody legs with contempt. "I can only assume that your skills as a marksman are far superior to your hand-to-hand combat."

Hagari snarled. "I never asked for your help. What do you want?"

Still's blade appear against his jaw. She stood inches away, but he never saw her move.

"Do you want Doctor Stein to continue his research? Expand the territory that enslaved you? Capture more innocent people? Perhaps capture you again?" The faint glow from the pebble outlined her tall silhouette, and the razor-sharp edge cut a fine line into Hagari's skin.

Hagari wondered if he could shoot Still before she sliced his neck. A terrible memory of a demonic swordsman that could dodge bullets flitted through his head. The memory awakened a dull, distant ache from the old scar on his chest, and the biker decided to hold back this time.

"The Commander recruits no one without reason. You are her contingency plan, Sniper. You may have the honor of killing Doctor Stein."

"Graffiti isn't going to . . ." Hagari stopped in confusion and then laughed to himself. "Is that all?'

Still studied his dark smirk, and slightly, relaxed her muscles.

"I don't know why that little slut doesn't take revenge herself, but it's nothing to me if Stein dies. I owe him a hit anyway. Just remember, I have my own reasons for fighting."

A loudspeaker boomed down the concrete tunnel, and Still snarled at the garbled voice. She dropped the blade from Hagari's neck and looped his left arm around her shoulder in one motion. "Lean on me, but watch where you put your hand."

Hagari smiled with thinly-veiled contempt. "You're not my type."

Hagari stepped onto his left leg, and Still heard a sharp intake of breath. "Max." She said into the empty air. "Bring your repair kit and meet us at the second stairwell. No remaking necessary. Extensive tissue damage."

"Who are you . . ." Hagari stepped onto his bad leg again and shot of pain broke his thoughts.

A faint, almost invisible, smile pulled at the corners of the cold beauty's mouth. "I'm calling for a medic." She explained in a flat voice. "He's quite good."


	14. Working With the Enemy

It's been so long, I doubt anyone is reading anymore. Oh well, I have crawled out from under my log, and will begin to post again. (Though I have started another story.)

I do not own Yu Yu Hakusho.

Working With the Enemy

To Kyo's disappointment, Mitarai's first condition was the return of his clothes. Max had put them in a desk drawer, so they were neatly folded with nothing taken or added.

"You know, those are really my clothes. I'm just lending them to you." Kyo sat cross-legged on the floor across from Mitarai. He leaned his chin on his hand and watched the small blonde dress with scheming eyes.

Mitarai undid the top two buttons and pulled the shirt over his head. "Fine. For the second condition, I want these clothes, and your cell phone."

"What?! Why? You can't pick up a signal down here!" Kyo looked incredulously at Mitarai, and then shot a silent appeal over his shoulder to Max.

The grey-eyed medic shrugged. He leaned against the steel door to the next room with his arms folded across his chest. "You said 'anything'."

Kyo grumbled to himself as his fished a slim black cell out of his jacket pocket. "Here." He threw the phone to Mitarai, and muttered angrily. "Fine! Fine. That's fine. It's a small price to pay. What else?!" Kyo glared at Mitarai like he expected to loose his shop next.

"I want to know how to close Oni's territory. I want to know what exactly Graffiti and Doctor Stein are planning."

"Whoah! Hold it!" Kyo put up both hands. Then he pointed to his starving siblings against the concrete walls and floor. "How long do you think they have?"

Mitarai dropped his eyes to the floor. "I-I'm not stalling but . . . I didn't do well in the dream machine. It was horrible. My mind divided. I was both Sea Man and Kiyoshi."

Kyo and Max shared a brief, but significant look.

"I need some way to beat him, or avoid him, but I am him . . ." Mitarai clearly saw himself with his hand around his mother's neck. He shuddered. "NO! "

Then the blonde looked up and saw both Kyo and Max eyeing him warily.

Mitarai cringed. _"That was my fault. For yelling about a thought they can't see."_

"Sorry." Mitarai took a deep breath and started again. "The territory itself isn't from Oni's power is it?"

"No." Max leaned one loafer heal against the metal door. "Oni's ability is the manipulation of thoughts, both his own and the thoughts of others. I've never seen it with my own eyes, but in the real world, he creates psychic links to enter the minds of other beings. You see the similarity? Correct me if I'm wrong, but your golems contain a piece of your mind and soul. The links created are a side effect of dividing yourself into multiple bodies._"_

Mitarai nodded uncomfortably. "I never really analyzed it, but that sounds right. The actual structure of that huge territory is contained in the machine then?"

Max checked his watch and frowned. He answered nonchalantly without meeting Mitarai's eyes. "The machine makes it easier to pull apart minds, drain their energy, and contain high quantities of refined energy. It's essentially an energy-gathering device for the reanimates." Max gestured to Kyo's bone-thin siblings as they lay unconscious against the concrete. "It's a flaw we could never correct. The reanimates lose energy between the body, mind and soul. We've discovered ways to slow the drain, but nothing to stop it. If a reanimate can't feed off of people directly, then he must feed off of Oni's territory to survive."

Mitarai nodded. "Oni explained why the territory existed, but he also said that Doctor Stein has been drawing huge amounts of energy from it lately. That's why Oni's territory expanded so quickly and openly. Before you only took a couple people at a time from the back alleys or nursing homes." Mitarai paused at how casually those words drifted out of his mouth. "But everyone captured can be healed if the territory is closed correctly." He added in a small, worried voice.

"True." Max paused and stared blankly ahead. His cold beauty's request for a medic reached his ears alone. He smirked smugly. "Even I don't hear everything that happens in Trans Labs, so I only have guesses at the nature of Doctor Stein's current project. However, you know who his new second-in-command is?"

"Yes. Itsuki-san, isn't it?" Mitarai shook his head bitterly. "I can only think of one reason that he would come to Trans Labs. They're planning to revive Sensui-san. That's the cause of the territory's energy drain, probably. It would take an incredible amount of energy to restore Black Angel to full strength."

"Who's Sensui-san?" Kyo broke in like a child that wanted into the adult's conversation.

Max threw the redhead an irritated look, but answered anyway. "Sensui-san is the former spirit detective who tried to destroy the world by opening a portal to Hell. He almost succeeded."

"So he's the head case that lead the Seven?" Kyo tried to remember the file Graffiti had told him to read. In the end, he had only skimmed it in front of the television. "Oh well, is that all, one powerful psychic? He's surrounded by hundreds of psychic reanimates. Plus there's those goody-two-shoe intruders that stopped him the first time. What's he going to do, really?"

The medic shot Kyo an icy look, and the redhead's jaw snapped shut.

"Intruders?" Mitarai remembered the letter-carrying bird that he sent out to Yana, and smiled. _"So they got the message. Great! I wonder who they sent? If we stop Itsuki-san's plan, we can go home without ever facing Sensui-san."_

One of Kyo's sisters suddenly cried out and arched her back against the wall. Kyo was on his feet instantly, but bone-thin girl had passed out again before he could walk to her. Her long dark hair hung over her face, and she sat still and hunched like an old woman in brown rags. A tense silence followed as the three boys watched and waited for her to move again. She didn't.

"_I'll save Kyo-kun's family before I leave." _Mitarai turned his eyes from the starved girl, and started to chew his bottom lip._ "That should be alright, shouldn't it?_ _But the minds trapped and ripped up in the territory need to be saved as well. Does it have to be a choice? Does one side have to die?"_

"Back to the point." Max broke the slim blonde's line of thought. "The territory rips a person's logic and identity from their emotions and desires. The victim's mental and spiritual energy is sucked out. It's made to divide minds. The dream machines give access to a portion of Oni's mind in exchange for access to portion of the mind of the second acting puppetmaster. In this case, that's you. Two connected puppetmasters create a broader, more powerful territory, even if only Oni is actively controlling it. Oni's ability to control thoughts gives him a mind with no divisions or closed doors. However," Max narrowed his eyes at Mitarai as if he were a bug. "Your mind is badly divided. Within the dream machine, every thought or desire becomes tangible in a world that is created entirely out of your head. This includes everything that you've forgotten, and everything you would like to forget. If the division progresses, then your mind will split. In the territory, this means you become black ooze and exoskelton. Since you're connected to Oni, it hurts him as well."

Mitarai fidgeted and stared at the floor. "I'm sorry. It's hard for me to control. I used to be . . .evil. I was like a different person when I worked for Sensui-san. "

"Get over it." Max narrowed his gray eyes into slits. "And do it now. If your mind splits, likely only the dominate half will survive. There's no guarantee it will be the Mitarai that I'm speaking to now. I believe we could use either half of the golem master with the right persuasion." Max stared at Mitarai like a butcher calculating the weight of a calf.

Both Mitarai and Kyo shuddered.

"_Five minutes must be up." _Kyo thought, and he flashed a winning smile to Mitarai. "So, are you ready to go back in, Kiyoshi-kun?"

Mitarai cringed. "Um, Max-sensei?"

"Don't use that title." Kyo and Max said in unison.

"_What is it with these people and names?" _ A thought growled in the back of Mitarai's head. "Oni's mind has no hidden thoughts, and he is harmed if my mind divides to the point of collapse?"

"Correct."

Mitarai nodded. He noticed his hands were shaking and clasped them together to make them stop. "I can't hold up the territory alone. If you wanted me as a replacement for Oni, it won't work. I need Oni to be in the other dream machine, and I can't stay in for long."

Max nodded as if he expected that. "Anything else?"

"Yes. Don't kill anyone. No one, not even Doctor Stein."

Max and Kyo stared at him in disbelief, and then whimsical smiles stretched across their faces.

"I'm serious! I want everyone back! Oni! All the people in the territory! My allies! My classmates! Me!"Mitarai felt a strange flash of guilt including himself. "I want everyone to walk away from this."

"Isn't he adorable! Couldn't you just take him home?" Kyo playfully mussed the little blonde's hair. "Cute as a little yellow puppy!"

"Stop it!" Mitarai snapped and knocked Kyo's hand away. An image of him strangling Kyo flashed through his head. The redhead's fanged mouth hung open without breath, and his bulging eyes were dead. Mitarai shuddered as the vivid image vanished. _"No, that's not what I really want."_

"Puppy growing some teeth, huh?" Kyo spoke in baby-talk and poked Mitarai's forehead.

Mitarai briefly reconsidered strangling.

"I forgot how people on the surface can think. I've been down in Trans Labs too long." Max shook his head and wandered away from the steal door. "We agree to no killing, and we will promote your idea to every person we meet." Max bent over the tubes that he jerked out of the dream machine and began to reattach them. "Let's try a slightly different immersion into the territory. You will loose some of your ability to manipulate the territory, but so will your alter ego."

"No." Mitarai's voice was steady even if his body trembled. He had resolved to save the reanimates and was working out the details in his mind. He took a deep breath. "Put it back the way it was please. I need a full connection to Oni."

Max simply nodded and waved for Kyo to come over and help reconnect the machine. "Still-chan has called me to heal Sniper." Max whispered to Kyo. "And the battle with the cult has been reduced to a fight between representatives. I have a guess what our dear Sempai is up to, now. Get your batch on their feet quickly, but keep the golem master from splitting his mind, if you can. I'm leaving as soon as he's under."

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The total free-for-all battle of reanimates had become a coliseum crowd of tense spectators. The speakers only crackled static now, but the cult continued to chant praises to Doctor Stein's science with rhythmic rises in pitch and volume. They sang on, oblivious to the second generation spectators sitting among them or the flying chunks of concrete from the ongoing fight.

Prince Koenma sat with his back to the chanting priestess. "No point in talking to these brain-washed morons at all." He crossed his arms and legs, and sat sulking on a large chunk of concrete.

The huge red-haired teen kept one eye on the fight and one eye on Prince Koenma. Kuwabara's sword still burned in his fist. Kurama's moves were skilled, but mainly defensive, and the mallet-wielding chibi had only attacked enough to force retreat. "Still just testing each other out. Man, this taking forever!"

Kurama stood in a cloud of razor sharp rose petals between two newly-formed craters in the concrete floor. The masked child smiled with rows of shark-like teeth and batted at a deadly petals like a cat. Then the red fire that constantly burned in her five-inch-high eyes suddenly raged across her body, and she sprinted into the cloud of tiny blades. The sharp petals ignited as she ran. She raised her mallet above her oversized head, and woody vines erupted from the cracked concrete. They pulled struggling chibi to her knees. The strange vine sucked in the heat, converting it into tiny white flowers that smelled like ash.

She laughed like a b-movie witch and then suddenly screamed. The red flame heated until it turned blue. Then it became a white blast of pure heat, like a burning star had formed in the underground chamber.

Kurama jumped back from the intense heat, as did several of the reanimate spectators in the front rows.

"Yeah! That's my girl! Roast HIM!" Thalia cheered from across the room.

Kuwabara twitched. "Come on, Kurama! Just finish it, already!"

The intense white fire dwiddled into a small blue-green flame in the center of a pit of blackened ash and red-glowing, cracked concrete. A tiny figure shook off the black soot like a dog shaking off water. The chibi grinned at the green-eyed boy without a scratch or a sequin out of place.

Kurama's eyes narrowed. _"Physical attacks will not defeat her. Her weak points are her mind and her energy."_

"Come on, Kurama! We've got people to save! I know you can beat this goofy cartoon-wannabe!" Kuwabara yelled, and Thalia's eye twitched.

"You look here, big boy! L-chan is of Lenore-sama. I don't care how many fights that hairball-in-human-form has been in, he's going down. So you just sit down and shut up!" Thalia flicked the huge boy off with a burning hand.

Veins popped in Kuwabara's temple. "You don't know anything! He's a really ancient fox spirit, and a super-nerd student! You monster freaks better start running for your holes!"

"I don't care if he's the Easter Bunny! You damn egotists think you're so tough!" Thalia formed a fireball between her palms, and Kuwabara gripped his energy sword in both hands.

A high whistle screeched and echoed though the concrete room. "Hello! Remember us?" The masked chibi waved her hands above her multi-colored head like she was flagging down a plane. "Fight between representatives, remember?"

"I don't take orders from you!" Kuwabara snapped.

"And you don't fight girls!" The chibi pointed at the huge teen and he winced.

"Yeah, well . . ." Kuwabara glared at the broad-shouldered fire-wielder.

Thalia leaned forward and pulled down on her dress collar to show some cleavage.

Kuwabara's eyes jerked open, and he flushed. "What! What are you Doing!"

"Well, I have had surgery done, of course. Still, the doctor gave me a great rack, didn't he?" She blew him a kiss that was somewhere between a promise and a joke.

Kuwabara shook and his face went as red as his hair. "I don't know what you are, but that's not a something a girl should do!"

Thalia laughed. "You're serious! Oh, you must be a virgin!"

Mel tugged on her skirt. "They're from the surface . . ."She began in a small voice.

Then Koenma stood up and shrieked about a waste of his royal time to no one in particular, and rocks and broken lights began to fly through the air like a cafeteria food fight.

A light crashed between Kurama and Graffiti as concrete rocks and broken glass flew over their heads. They both sighed.

"Well, I've had my go. Are you going to try to stop them?" Graffiti idly twirled a lock of white hair.

"They don't intend any real harm toward each other. They're just acting out the stress and frustration of the situation." Kurama said calmly as an uprooted lampweed whizzed by his head.

"I'm translating that as 'No'". The chibi girl grew into the full-sized Graffiti. She swatted down a rock that flew towards her flat, rainbow-striped chest. "I was saving this trick for later, but I'll just change the phrase's interpretation now."

Then they both disapeared.

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Kurama recognized the distorted, multi-colored room instantly, but didn't understand how he got there. He was just fighting Graffiti in Trans Labs. How did he get into the top room of the house of four dimensions?

"I think, therefore I am." Said a low, lazy voice. The masked girl stood straight out from a red wall and stared down at the confused kitsune.

"In it's simplest interpretation, it could mean you are who and what you think you are." A low, lagging voice emitted from the tiny girl, and the eyes behind the blue glitter seemed completely devoid of anger. "It could also mean that the only existence that is proven is your own, and all reality is based on your perception of it. That the world is really set according to your thoughts, but I'm sure you know about Descartes and all sorts of other books. Watch for that phrase. She uses it a lot." The tiny fighter stretched her arms in a slow, careless way, and idly scratched the back of her wild hair.

Kurama blinked. "Yana-kun."

The girl nodded and awkwardly grinned. "Sorry about the fight. I ain't knocking you or anything, but this one's gonna be tough. They caught all three of us, and they've got Kido and Kaito locked up in Oni's territory. If Oni is just yanked out, the whole thing collapses and their minds are permanently destroyed. Them and everyone else that's trapped. That's why we have to keep Doctor Stein pre-occupied, so he doesn't run and take Oni with him. The real Graffiti is sneaking around behind Doctor Stein to steal Oni. Oni will close the territory, then Kido, Kaito and every else gets released. I read Graffiti's thoughts, so I know it's true. Actually, what really scares me is the whole Sensui resurrection."

"What did you say!" Kurama's eyes flew wide open.

"Oh, didn't Sniper know about that? Itsuki-san is trying to revive Sensui-san." Yana winced at the piercing glare Kurama shot at him. "Aw, come on, man. I didn't really want to fight against you. I just couldn't come up with a better plan. I can't just leave everyone in that brain-sucking gunk." The shapeshifter held his small palms up in appeal.

Kurama dropped his leaf-green eyes and started to pace. He made three circles of the room with his arms folded tightly across his chest. He stopped and shot Yana a look as focused as a laser beam. "You have a copy of Graffiti's mind. Do you know what she is planning?"

"I knew what she was planning a few hours ago. She changes her mind every few minutes, and her brain is like a junk heap. It's hard to find anything."Yana shrugged the tiny shoulders helplessly. "She was planning on replacing Oni in the dream machine with Sea Man, but I think that's old now. She wants to do something with Gatekeeper and Koenma, but it wasn't focused yet. I'm sorry."

Kurama's eyes narrowed. _"Mitarai-kun. Why did she go so far out of her way in that kidnapping? Oni could have collected him through the mist. Perhaps, the abduction was a mission that was given to her by Doctor Stein, and she simply twisted it to her advantage. No, The difference here is us. She wanted to recruit, but she has fighters. And Sensui-san and Oni are guarded by Doctor Stein." _The red-head nodded. "Graffiti creates multiple pathways to follow, so that her plans continue toward her goal even with several failures. We need to go back now. Sensui-san must not be revived."

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"WHAAAT!" Doctor Stein shrieked at the surveillance monitor. His hands pressed against the screen and violent shakes ran through his body. "Gone! GONE! NO! Lenore can never leave me! It's not possible. It didn't happen! She's not DEAD! I DIDN'T DO ANYTHING! I . . .I . . . I brought her back, so it's fixed now." The old man crumpled up onto the floor and sobbed into his hands. Two vacant-eyed, ash-skinned assistants patted his back and hands in a pre-programmed gesture of comfort. Five other third-generation white-coats worked frantically to restore Graffiti to the screen by switching continuously between the working cameras on all the active monitors.

The cult room was in a free-for-all brawl again, but this time it was more like a bizarre game of dodge ball. A loud fire-wielding female had declared war on a stupid swordsman and proceeded to build a fort out of a broken column. Prince Koenma had taken the Priestess either as a hostage or to force her to listen to his carefully-planned speech. She continued to chant, completely oblivious. Second-generation reanimates and even some of the more awake cult members would spontaneously join Kuwabara and Koenma's side to even up the teams.

Max was walking with the notorious treatment box to the northern stairwell where Hagari was slowly bleeding to death under Still's apathetic eye. Kamiya was walking down the concrete corridors with the expression of a man who knew that he was lost, but wasn't ready to admit to it yet. Kyo was absent altogether. However, the surveillance was pitch dark for most of the halls and rooms, and many of the cameras were destroyed..

Itsuki frowned at the collective images on the surveillance monitors. _"Kyo-kun's absence is very troubling. Hopefully, he's relatively calm in this chaos."_ The scene of Hagari and Still waiting by the stairs reappeared on a monitor, and a suspicion formed in the ancient demon's mind.

"Lenore, please. I need you. Don't go. I'm sorry. . ." Doctor Stein cried into his coat tail. The two empty-eyed assistants patted his back as rhythmically as machines.

Itsuki looked down at the sobbing old madman balled up on the lab floor. He felt acid rise from his stomach to the back of his mouth. The green-haired demon almost cut Doctor Stein's throat on the spot. "Revolting." He muttered and turned his heal to sobbing doctor.

The demon walked through a nearby steal door. Three expressionless lab assistants shuffled around the crowded, small room. Oni's dream machine was against the far wall and leaked foul-smelling liquid onto the concrete floor. Machines glowed and bleeped amid stacks of raw data. The former spirit detective lay on a narrow white-sheet bed with dozens of string-thin blue tubes piercing the dead skin. His tall, lean body glowed faintly yellow as his energy wavelength pulsed. Itsuki couldn't help but softly smile when he looked at Shinobu.

"You're almost awake, aren't you?" He touched Sensui's bare chest with his fingertips. The skin was cool, but not ice cold like it was. A mind stirred inside the waves of energy, like a chick within an egg. "Do you recognize me, Shinobu?"

Itsuki allowed his fingers to linger on Sensui's skin and gazed at his narrow face with a serine smile. "It's not the same, you know. The love I feel, is not the same as the selfish dependency that Doctor Stein has towards his deceased . . . no, his murdered partner, Lenore. The Demon World is finally choosing its King. Urameshi-san is the second-in-command of his ancestor. He's a person of great interest to Shinobu. Even if that detective was not involved, the Demon World will finally unite and be able to resist the Lords of the Spirit World. I know that Shinobu would want to see the independence of the Demon World with his own eyes. It's not that I don't long to hear him speak to me. I do, but . . . that alone would not motive me to revive him. He had his resolution, after all, and died with his work completed and his personality whole. Who else but Sensui would achieve such perfect closure?"

"It wasn't closure for you though, was it?" Three ash-skinned lab assistants jotted down results of interest from the life and energy monitors of Sensui and Oni.

"Love is need." The one on the far right glanced over his shoulder with a black smirk, and twirled a pen in his right hand. "It was the dominant hand that gave me away wasn't it, Itsuki-san? By the time I realized my mistake, it was too late to rewrite the disguise."

Itsuki nodded and gracefully crossed his arms. "I knew you would come here somehow. I understand obsessive love that will make a person give up everything for another. You must free your brother with your own hands. Am I right, Miss Stein?"

"Guilty." An angry spark leapt into the black, vacant eyes. "And you willing tie your existence to Shinobu Sensui. Not that I blame you. Anyone that brings all of Spirit World to their knees is a person of interest in my book. I might even admire him a bit."

The two villains shared a knowing smile, and the tension between them passed into relief.

"Well then, Loverboy, the problem now is Doctor Stein."

"There's no problem. I'll remove him now." Itsuki calmly unfolded his arms and walked towards the open door.

"I'll stop you." Graffiti chirped musically as a black smile spread across the ash-white face.

The alarmed demon stopped dead in his tracks and glared at her menacingly.

"Or to be more specific, Lenore Stein will stop you. I usually have the wheel, but there are a handful of things that will force the old bat out of her deep, dark pit. If Doctor Stein could be 'removed' with me in the labs, he would have been murdered in his bed long ago."

Itsuki smiled and then softly chuckled. "I see. I see why you would admire Shinobu Sensui. I will wait until Sniper is in position, Miss Stein. Will that be enough leeway?"

The fake lab assistant nodded, and the expression became robotic. The third returned to recording data from the monitor.

Itsuki strolled up to Doctor Stein and stood behind him as the current ruler of Trans Labs sat rocking back and forth on the floor. The demon gazed over the mad doctor's head at the flashing monitors. He watched the progress of Max and Hagari with the patience of a vulture.


	15. Necessary Measures

Next chapter should be action. I hope. My story keeps telling me what to write. It should be the other way around.

I don't own Yu Yu Hakusho, or Pac-Man.

Necessary Measures

"This can't possibly be right." Kamiya said into the dark air of the straight concrete hall. His psychic scalpel was the only light, and his white coat reflected brightly in the pitch black tunnel. "I should have come to the first large room by now, but it's only this concrete hall no matter how far I walk." He looked back over his shoulder and saw the same square, dark concrete hall that was before him. "There haven't been any turns. Did I take a different tunnel out of the cult room? I thought there was only one tunnel leading in from the outside." He frowned with worry. "I found dead thirds with Hagari-kun's bulletholes, so where is he? Or perhaps, 'Where am I?' is a better question."

Doctor heard the laughter of children around him in the dark, and then the lights came on. The dark concrete hall was suddenly a bright metallic blue. Huge white, glowing balls floated in mid-air, evenly spaced every twenty feet down the straight halls. The halls now joined with other hallways at knife-sharp ninety-degree turns. A simple digital melody began to play.

Then a giant yellow ball that filled the entire hall hit the floor with the shock and vibration of a boulder. A line formed across its surface and opened until it looked like a triangular wedge had been sliced out of the enormous yellow sphere. Then it shot towards him with the wedge opening and closing. "Wakka!Wakka!Wakka!Wakka!"

"AAHHHH! GAMEMASTER! YOU BRAT!!!!" Doctor ran down the blue hall with the laughter of two small boys ringing in his ears.

Suddenly, Doctor stopped dead in his tracks. "Wait! I can't be in this game if I don't have a part to play." The giant Pac-Man was right behind him. Doctor spun and slashed across its open mouth with his scalpel. It spun on its side and dissolved. "Therefore, I must be one of the ghosts, and it hadn't eaten a . . .special, extra-large light-ball . . . I forget the name of those things." Doctor shrugged and continued talking to himself. "How gracious of him to pick a game I actually knew."

The music started up for the next round, and Kamiya snapped back to the warped reality. "WAIT! ANANUMA-KUN! YOU'RE ON THE WRONG SIDE! DON'T MAKE THE SAME MISTAKE TWICE!" He screamed at the top of his lungs.

The Doctor's faint cries echoed from the handheld game. "What do you know?" The freckled boy scoffed. "I know a lot more about what's happening then you do! NO ONE is going to die this time! That's the whole point!" Gamemaster pressed the start button and the game continued.

Looking over Gamemaster's shoulder, Oni smiled.

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"There's my beautiful girl." A tall young man with blue-tipped white hair and a doctor's white coat stepped through the stairwell door and openly oogled the busty raven-haired beauty leaning against the stair rail.

"You're late." The girl announced without checking even one of her three watches. "He can't climb stairs with those wounds. We tried."

The medic's gray, droopy eyes fixed on Hagari's bloody legs. With only the faint light from a glowing pebble, the medic made a quick assessment. "Looks like they raked the whole back of your left leg, and the right knee is twisted. We'll start there."

Max set a beat-up brown suitcase down on the ground and sat cross-legged in front of it. He pulled out some blood-stained brown gloves covered with wires and tubes that had various claw-like blades and hooks at the fingertips. He then took out a brown box with strange knobs and valves on its top. The plain box made noises like clinking glass when he gently set it on the floor next to Sniper.

"What is that?" Sniper looked suspiciously at the box and gloves.

"Tools of the trade." Max responded with a naturally calm bedside manner. "I'm young, but I assure you, I am experienced." Then the lights abruptly came on. "Oh, how convenient. I'll send Doctor Stein a thank you card once he reaches hell." Max paused and sighed. "Ah, that's right, no killing."

Still raised an eyebrow, but all she said was, "Will the lights effect our Commander's plans?"

"Not at this point. I believe we've moved onto contingency number three. Though I haven't heard all of Sempai's possible plans." He hooked the gloves' wires and tubes to the box, and a florescent blue liquid filled the tubes. The glove twitched without a hand in it. "Both her and the fox simply vanished from my surveillance. I believe they're fighting in an alternate space. Doctor Stein is threatening to harm Oni, but that was expected."

"By commander, you mean Graffiti?" Hagari broke in. "Then what side are you on if Graffiti is fighting Kurama?!"

"The reanimates, obviously." Max answered smugly.

Hagari shifted the glowing rock in his palm to flick it with his thumb.

"Now, now. We have a use for you, so there's no reason for malpractice. Besides, even though you could easily shoot me, you have no prayer of hitting Still-chan with anything as slow as a bullet." Max smiled affectionately at the girl over his shoulder. "You would avenge me, beautiful?"

"I'll destroy the worthless."

Max shook his head ruefully. "And there you have it. We make ourselves useful, or she disposes of both of us." He pulled on one of the gloves and waited.

Sniper looked from his throbbing leg, to Still, to Max. He closed his hand around the pebble with his teeth grinding.

"Good. Since you're skeptical, I'll let you watch the treatment to your right knee. That won't take more than local anesthetics. However, I will need to put you under for the level of demonic energy your left leg will require."

"Demonic energy?"

"How else could we manipulate the flesh so completely and easily? I assure you though, our methods of control are well refined. It's just too painful to be conscious." Intense hate suddenly twisted Max's placid features. "Believe me, you'd beg to die if I did demonic energy surgery while you were awake." Then like flicking a light switch, his face was calm again. "Now, I'll need to cut off your pants."

Hagiri glared at Max and tried to get to his feet. Searing pain shot up his left leg, and the biker collapsed back onto the bloody floor with his jaw clenched.

"Stay calm. I have to get to your injuries, and those pants are already destroyed." The young medic explained patiently. "We'll just start with this." He pulled on the blood-stained brown glove, and sliced the jeans over Hagiri's knee with a quick flick of his wrist. The skin was untouched. "I am just a medical professional making a house call, as rare as that is." Max smiled. "Now, the local pain killer we use has ice maiden blood in it, so you will feel a bit chilled. I will be continuously administering pain killer through the hollow claw on the glove's ring finger while I work. I'm going to cut under the knee cap to reach the tendon. You may feel something worm-like wiggling in your knee. It is repairing the tears in your flesh, and it will be removed before I close."

"Get away! We brought our own doctor. I want him." Hagiri slowly pushed himself away from Max like he was a pit viper.

Max automatically focused his hearing. The Doctor's footsteps and voice were absent from the concrete halls. "And where is he?" Max said half to himself.

Max filed Kamiya's disappearance away in the back of his mind, and continued speaking pleasantly to Hagari. "You need treatment now. Not just to stop the bleeding, your teammates need you in fighting shape. Doctor Stein could escape without a sniper to stop him. Sea Man could be trapped in the dream machine permanently." Sniper's eye twitched, so Max continued about Mitarai. "When I left, Kyon had locked Sea Man into Oni's territory for the second time. The first time, his mind nearly collapsed. He agreed to return to Oni's territory in order to save Kyon's siblings."

Hagari glared at the concrete floor. "Idiot," he muttered.

Max continued. "I don't believe the golem master can stand more than a few minutes before his mind starts to eat itself, so to speak. The battle in the cult room continues without you as well."

Hagari's fist hit the floor. "Dammit! That . . ." Shakes of rage ran through Sniper's whole body, but quickly passed. "Fix me so I can fight again."

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At first, there was nothing. A white void without sky, ground or gravity. Kyo's red energy body drifted idly through the white nothing like a lost astronaut in deep space. Then a fine line, a divide, cut the nothing into sky and ground, and Kyo found himself standing on a void floor. The sky started to swirl, and the airless space became heavier. Then liquid flowed around him, and the river's surface formed from the swirling sky. Clear faces stared down at the red monster from above, but no rain fell from their mouths. The ground changed to an unstable, shifting river bottom of blues and browns, and an unseen sun sent shafts of light into the deep river. Mitarai appeared in the water and Kyo started to smell blood.

The blonde psychic looked at the twisted water world with dread. "Just like I left it."

"_Well, duh! Who do you think makes it like this?" _ Kyo pressed his fingertip to his temple with his hand in the shape of a gun.

"Why are you doing that?! Is something here already?!" Mitarai looked around nervously. Suddenly, two red marbles shot through the water world, and reality shattered around them like broken glass.

They stood in an apartment bedroom. Everything was burnt and broken like a bomb had gone off.

"Get down!" Mitarai tackled Kyo, and two dice flew into the cracked wall with the speed of bullets.

Kyo stared blankly at the burn marks on the white ceiling and felt Mitarai's warm body tremble on top on his. _"Well, this certainly isn't all bad, but who is shooting at us?"_ Kyo turned his red eyes to the broken window and saw a handsome teenager in a red jacket on the neighboring building's roof. _"Doll? No wait, he's with Still and injured. A fake?"_

"Sorry." Mitarai pushed himself up on his elbows, and squeezed his eyes shut with concentration.

Sniper vanished.

"I let a bad memory come up. I'll move us now instead of screwing up the world."

"_Oh, don't be sorry. And feel free to stay right there." _Kyo smiled smugly and crossed his arms behind his head.

Kyo didn't feel any sensation of movement, but everything changed. The faint metallic taint that hung in the air was replaced by the scent of salt. A dark sky of northern lights replaced the burnt ceiling. The walls were gone, and he laid on something soft and . . . slimy. The red monster looked at the blonde lying on his chest an saw double. Four blue eyes slowly opened.

"_He's twins now?! Score!"_ The red monster spontaneously threw his arms around both Mitarais, and for an instant, they had the same reaction. Both clenched their teeth with wide, surprised eyes.

Then the blonde on the left strangled him. "What are smiling at, lab rat! Are you enjoying this!!" He tightened his fingers around Kyo's unstable energy throat, and his fingers started to sink into the red flesh.

"No! Stop it!" The Mitarai on the right grabbed his double's hands and tried to pull them off of Kyo's neck. "You can't destroy him in that energy body anyway."

Sea Man gave Kiyoshi an evil smile, and released his grip. "Alright wimp, that point I'll give you. I get sick looking at these inhuman freaks, and then it throws its arms over me." He suddenly pulled a switchblade out of thin air.

"Kyo-kun has us captured." Kiyoshi quickly spoke before Sea Man could use his knife. "Even if you destroy the form he's in right now, Kyo will only wake up in the real world. We are still trapped in the dream machine. He can kill us at any time."

"Do really believe that? They want to make you into a pet, or a prostitute." Sea Man smiled with blood lust and slowly turned his blade toward Kiyoshi. His psychopathic eyes enjoyed Kiyoshi's fear.

"_Is that what I looked like when I attacked Kuwabara-san?"_ Mitarai's gentler side shuddered. "We can't rely on our kidnappers to be kind."

Sea Man pointed the blade at Kiyoshi's nose, and smiled when he froze with fear. Then Sea Man slowly lowered it the center of his timid double's chest. "You want to save Kyo's siblings? You're betting our lives that I'll help you for fear of being murdered?" Sea Man jabbed the knife through Kiyoshi's shirt, and the tip just broke his skin.

"N-NO! Don't!" Kiyoshi grabbed his double's hand, but he couldn't push the knife away any more than he could push away a boulder.

"Don't? You knew this was a risk, didn't you?" Sea Man crawled off of the wide-eyed Kyo and pushed Mitarai onto the blubbery ground. "I don't need you to manipulate this illusion world, or to get out of Trans Labs. I'm tired of a weakling like you controlling what I do! Let's see what happens when one half of a mind kills the other!"

Kyo quickly wrapped his arms around Sea Man and pulled him off Kiyoshi.

"LET GO OR YOU"RE DEAD, MONSTER!!"

"_O.K. I get it. He broke in two."_ Kyo thought as Sea Man struggled in his hold like a fish out of water. Then Sea Man bit him. Kyo threw him down and pinned Sea Man to the ground with a knee against his back and an arm across his head. _"Screw this Mitarai! I'll take the sweet, cute one."_

Kiyoshi winced and pulled the knife out of his chest. It only went in half an inch, but his heart was still racing. _"I don't know what happens if I'm killed in here. Neither does he, but he still . . ." _His eyes met with Sea Man's, and his other half snarled.

"That was reckless." Kiyoshi's voice shook, but he didn't stop. "You don't know what happens if one of us dies in the dream machine."

Sea Man laughed in a strange, unsteady rhythm. He narrowed his eyes in Kyo's direction as an unspoken threat. "Why do you want your siblings back? Aren't you better off without those parasites?"

Kyo punched Sea Man's back.

"_Nice, Kyo-kun!" _Kiyoshi cheered automatically. Then a passing thought. _"Wait. He just hit me. I didn't feel anything though."_

"Are you fighting yourself, Mitarai-kun? That's no way to live, you know." A childish voice spoke over Kiyoshi's shoulder.

Kiyoshi jerked his head around and a small boy beamed a wide, black smile at him. Suddenly, the little boy's head split down his nose, and black wires covered in clear slime came spilling out of the gap.

"OH MY GOD! ONI!"

"It's fine. I got it." Oni waved off Kiyoshi's outreached arms, and smiled contentedly beneath the split in his face. He shoveled the loose wires back into his head and pressed his skull shut like he was closing a clam shell. He straightened his jet black hair with his fingers. "Better?"

Kiyoshi meekly nodded.

"It's not good for me to leave you divided. We're not entirely separated thanks to the dream machines, and my mind can't support division like yours can . . . So, I hate to ask but, I need to push you two back together for now. You can resolve this dominance fight later, O.K."

"Yes, of course," Kiyoshi said in a meek voice. "Sorry to cause you the trouble . . ." His worried blue eyes drifted to his snarling counterpart, and he shuddered. _"No, we're really the same person. We should be together . . . I think."_

"Hold still, this won't hurt. This place is more mine than yours, so if I say it don't hurt, then it don't hurt." He nodded curtly with a broad, black smile, and reached his hand into Kiyoshi's chest like it was an open jar.

Both Mitarai's mouths dropped open, as Oni rummaged around in Kiyoshi's torso like he was trying to draw the winning number out of a hat.

The red monster also cocked his head and stared from atop Sea Man's back. _"Puppetmasters are freaky."_

"You sure do keep a lot of junk in here." Oni complained like a house guest in a messy room.

"Um . . .Sorry?" Kiyoshi didn't know what to say as the strange boy ran his fingers though his lungs.

Sea Man disappeared into thin air, and Kyo stared dumbly at his suddenly empty hands.

"Don't worry. He only appears gone. Sea Man hasn't really left." Oni reassured him, but the thought of an invisible Sea Man made Kyo very nervous.

Kiyoshi could only stare at Oni's arm where it disappeared into his shirt. It didn't hurt, but he wanted to knock the monster boy's hand away. Only, Oni's head split open because of him, so he had to let Oni put Sea Man and him back together. The timid blonde stared at the black, soft floor as Oni's small fingers searched the inside of his chest. He tried desperately not to squirm, flush, or curl up into a ball.

"Oh, here it is!" The ashy-skinned child smiled victoriously.

"_Thank God!" _Kiyoshi thought. _"Now get out!"_

Oni pulled out a blue slime that stretched out of Kiyoshi's chest like melted taffy. The child smiled as he rolled it between his hands like play-doe and shaped it into a ball. The lopsided ball then levitated and rounded itself perfectly. It began to glow with spirit energy like a pocket-sized sun floating above the small boy's hand. "Remember, if you control the territory, anything you think can be real. That means we can pull out people's souls out and reshape them."

Kiyoshi shook his head in disbelief as he tried to wrap his mind around that one. "There has to be limits."

Then the air around them rang with Sea Man's laughter.

"See. I told you he wasn't really gone." Oni placed his hands on his hips victoriously. It was a pose Mitarai had seen from arrogant kids on the playground, and the ash-skinned boy held a his distorted soul in his hand.

"_What am I doing?!" _Kiyoshi suddenly saw the insanity of the whole situation, and wanted desperately to be at home in bed. "W-wait . . . I-I don't . . ." Kiyoshi began to stutter, but he couldn't finish the sentence. _"I don't want to do this. Leave me alone!"_ He thought of death and pain, and he thought of Kyo's siblings dying. He thought of his allies fighting, and being trapped in the dream machine, and going crazy, and reanimated corpses. _"Somebody! Why am I here!? I want to go home. NO, I hate home! I shouldn't be here! I've gone too far, haven't I?! I can't run away and leave it!" _Kiyoshi's mouth worked silently for a few more seconds, but he couldn't speak. He hugged himself and sank miserably to the ground.

Oni smiled warmly. "You're going to be fine. You're just missing you. I'm sure you'll understand, because you're a puppetmaster too."

"Yes." Kiyoshi agreed without hearing Oni's words. He gazed silently at the child's feet, and tried to think of nothing.

Oni patted Kiyoshi's arm with an ashy and icy hand. "You'll feel better with your spark back."

Then dark clouds whipped around them like a flash flood and blue lightning streaked in all directions.

Kyo hit the deck and covered his head. _"I shouldn't have come! I shouldn't have come! How did I think I could help in here anyway!!"_

A shaft of blue lightning hit Kiyoshi's back and arched to the soul in Oni's hand. Somewhere in the clouds, Sea Man screamed, and Kiyoshi felt a distant rage and bitter disappointment. Mitarai's body shook with spasms and a sinister presence took up residence where his spine attached to his brain. An invisible weight spread across his chest like a metal plate had sealed it off. A deep, controlled rage and fear pressed into the far corners of his brain. His emotions clouded, but his senses sharpened. Mitarai didn't want to run anymore. He wanted to fight, the question was, who should he fight? The glowing soul emitted blue sparks as it drifted into Mitarai's body like it was pulled by a magnet.

Mitarai sat there for a moment trying to process the changes to his own mind. "I don't understand how it works really, but Kyo's siblings, I understand why you feed them like that. Part of them is in the territory, and the energy is pulled into them like, electricity on a wire?" Mitarai frowned at his own analogy, and then shook his head and laughed. "Thank you, Oni. I came to ask you how to free Kyo-kun's siblings, and how to beat Sea Man. This answered both, and I haven't forgotten that I promised to get you out too."

Oni nodded with the confidence of a sheltered child. "I trust you."

Then Oni changed spaces, and returned to the floating cliff with the frozen waterfall where he had left Ananuma. He had made his new-found friend a grass hut with a broad, red smiling face on the door. It was just like the boss monkey's house in the tropical treasure-hunt game that Oni had seen in the memories of captured children.

The gamemaster's game was off and on the floor, and a tall, auburn-haired demon stood behind him with one heavy hand on the child's shoulder. Ananuma was terrified and sat curled up on a stool of logs and palm leaves. The teenager examined Oni with a cool and calculating gaze. "Are you the puppetmaster?"

"That's right!" Oni smiled a cheerful, coal-black smile. "Sister said that you might be coming here. Are going to try to beat me?" Oni put up his fists playfully and started jumping around in a bad imitation of boxing.

Kurama cracked a smile. "I'm not here to fight you, Oni-kun. Honestly, I could never win against you within Trans Labs. I'm asking you to lend us your strength."

The pale child stopped boxing air. Oni cocked his head and wondered about fighting alongside the outsiders. "Do I have to fight sister? Or Kyo? Or any of my friends?"

"No. I have no interest in destroying the reanimates. I want the territory deactivated, the captured people freed, and Sensui-san destroyed."

Oni rocked back and forth on his heels for a moment with his lips pursed. "O.K. Little L didn't say I couldn't join you guys or kill Sensui-san, so I will."

IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII

Hagari awoke suddenly with no clouds from drugs or lingering aches in his mind. He felt perfect, as if he could jump up and run a marathon that instant. He stood and his legs were solid, and his whole body felt light and energized.

Max sat on the bottom stair packing his battered box of questionable medical gear. "How are you feeling?" The medic kept his droopy eyes on his work.

"Good." Hagari admitted. He noticed Still standing impatiently above him on the stairs and both started to climb without exchanging words.

"One moment." Max stood to face Hagari and looked at the biker with sympathy. "You probably feel a few changes, and that . . . " He glanced at the floor in a rare moment of embarrassment before pointedly looking Hagari in the eye. "I miscalculated the amount of blood you had lost, and I apologize for this horrendous oversight. Hagari-san, I'm afraid you didn't make it. I deeply apologize for your lose."


End file.
